Candied pineapple sits on my tongue

sensory, sweet and bursting with a

joy of homecoming and you

resounding off the walls

…memories swirling in

 

 

The rules were broken yesterday

hammered and torn into private pieces

mostly warped from personal pain

choked down to lie where nothing else matters

…where nothing else makes sense

 

 

Naught is heard or felt or known

to stop the flow, the flow of emotion

where only the small and tender can find

their way home where summer dresses hang

…in the closet next to winter coats

 

 

To scarcely touch and be touched

an awareness of my heartbeat

from an inner core of percussion

while sensations turn in swirls of hot dust

… blindly settling into corners

 

 

Back from the dark, the starched and strident past

of bent and broken chairs

the chairs that tried to place you there

You…sitting…there

…darkly handsome with perfect posture

 

 

Lips on mine at this feast

when you fed me candied treats

to coerce me into loving you

forcing sweets onto my tongue

…in full measured spoons

 

 

Only the small and fragile resolve

to find a place to fall undamaged

a place to rest, to please

to will and to allow

…for a hand to press a soft and tender thigh