Body Language

There's a pulse

beating like hell in constant rhythm

right along the jawline

while you listen so intently

what message is that?

Those bones

the lines of them pushing out hard and sharp from your hips

right below the waistline

oh god those incredible bones!

what are you selling?

Those lips

spilling sonnets fit for royal audience

not close enough to mine

while you answer nonchalantly

what are you trying to say?

tellmetellmetellme

Well

Well

polished Rubies

they hang from two rusted fish hooks

pushed deep into the meaty flesh of your earlobes

the edges of the holes that were made where they pierced your skin

are crusted brown

Those rubies are the cleanest thing about you

and they glisten so brightly in the sun that I can see them

even from all the way down here

you come each day to smile your toothy grin down at me

I imagine each incisor

a piece of tobacco stained porcelain

that they are sunk

each one

into gums made from red clay

that same stinking red earth which surrounds me

I imagine it must rot inside your mouth

the roots that protrude from my thick soil walls

that those must grow out from under your tongue

like your words

You send them snaking down

too slow through the moldy earth to reach me

only to have them recoil before I might catch hold

and be pulled to safety.