Lap Ice Cream
for S.F.

love for a woman or two alone keeps me here
keeps me clinging to the crust of the earth

hungry for death, hungry for life, these upon a scale
which from day to day will out weight
until the end, until it's over

in the main time how she keeps me

said she likes to drink
lives with a man, sleeps with a man
insider that I am, from outside, I look in

thinking just last evening, were I Picasso,
had I such status, she'd be my Françoise Gilot

I'm not Picasso though, just mad about her
without intending to be, fallen into the deep
and I'm unable to climb out

her white skin, my ice cream
could drop scoops of vanilla where her thighs meet
her thighs and ice cream very nearly one shade
she is warm dough

ice cream would be ice cream over apple pie
chase it, running, dripping, draining, licking
wild

looked at her thighs while leaving a while ago, while parting
wanted to plant kisses, even casually, bid her farewell

cup of life bitter, I have to drink it
sugar against harshness, fatigue, disenchantment

able to say fuck like no body's business, like no body can
what would it be like to hear her say, to have her say,
fuck me

two sweaty poets, two salamanders


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2009
2:30 a.m. 01.08.09