HANNAH MADONNA

★ ★ ★ ★

POETRY

A Lover’s Map

There never has existed
in such great glorious expanse
a longer distance to travel
than the broad wilderness of your back
from the wing of your shoulder blade
to the warm dip that sits a valley
the basin of the river
of your spine

The curve of your foot a canyon
your elbows twin peaks to
the soft enticing sands of your
bare and holy palms
the cut of your eye like a jewel
that adorns the plain of your face
a sloping nose to the lush soil of
your bright skinned cheek

And still there is more of you
the saltwater rush as your lips
like a tide part at the seam
of your luminous cavern of mouth
I march the untrodden paths of you
with eager wandering hands
down to the sacred places
where the mountains of your thighs meet the land

Rated “M” for Mature

– I’m a gamer, he said
– I just really like video games
So I smiled wide and fake
Wonderful, I thought
As if that’s a personality
– I know I know, he laughed
– as if that’s a personality
Oh.

Reader, I fucked him.

To Eat a Peach

I will not take a bite
from the fuzzy soft skin
that tickles my lips like a whisper
not from the jelly-firm fruit
that sinks from the force of my teeth
as I tear apart the insides so tender and ripe
I will not let the juices
slip from my mouth in a sticky viscous fall
staining my skin
with the color and taste
of bright eternal summer
no I will not take a bite
I will hold the roundness soft
and plump the fruit
so ripe and eager and
burnished gold the last
and best sitting like a jewel
in my palm