The Phoenixwife’s Library of Love, by Alexandra Seidel
The pages curling like lovers
around her flame phoenix fingers
their color darkening like the blushing of lips
in an orgasm, lasting as long
before the ash purls away on the breeze of paper turned.
She strays all along stacks and racks
and piles of her lovers, one-night-stands
all of them, to be collected on her lips,
their ink and vellum like questing tongues
longing for her voice…
…her hands, her eyes, her very breath
a disaster that poets have called love;
sometimes the spines remain, pages she did not turn
a tale she could not see through
to its end for reasons hidden within her own heart.
She puts them, one atop the other, high
as walls, porous as the promise of true love
and walks past them every night
before she goes to bed alone
pretending to herself
that both sides are happy in this charnel place
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.