“You Taste Like Verandas and Mid-Afternoon”

poem by Bridget Gwyn || graphic by Harper Haynes

PREFACE

my soul lives with a window to the outside,
a gaping hole in my chest that festers during the summer heat and closes its panes for the first snowstorm. 
when lips feel sewn shut with electrical wiring and throat filled with overpowering perfume,
there is medicine in the form of cramped fingers gripping pen, 
scrambled cursive layers on stained paper.
therapy in hot lights and lukewarm tea, a stage that creaks to ghosts of writers past, and snapped fingers or spoons against glass.
my soul leaks out and floats to the ceiling, bumping against others and thudding against tap-dance floors and live jazz. 
and the window is a dutch door opened wide to company. 

GAS STATION, OFF THE HIGHWAY

a gas station bathroom mirrors best your wishes
not three like a jinn, but
infinite like gin and coke in a to-go styrofoam,
with a lip-sticky straw and a dirty cup-holder. 

those who know this best need it the most,
and that is why you should never spend more than five minutes inside sober. 

pull apart your eyelids and examine the melanocytes rotting in-between 
and someone will call you “bright eyes” and mean it.

stretch that tank-top, yellowing white, across freckled-pale arms
rip it clean in half and a new one will appear, smell like chemicals. 

pull your baby-fat cheeks over the same bones and hope that
skin can sluice clean off,
drip down the sink,
renew and reinvent with one splash of tepid faucet water. 

get your corn chips and a diet soda and a pack of cigarettes
(pricey but not as expensive). 
blow a kiss to the clerk,
catch your flipflops on the same metal ledge outside, superstition,
and let your ignition and your fingers tremble as you pull past a midday moon. 

SHE

a window inside my soul is
effervescent at best times
wet towel at worst and at most masks beach salt and
hard packed earth swarming beneath concrete.

weight of the world unceremoniously dumped on her shoulders;
constantly they remind her that she was never meant to survive its width.
as she rolls her eyes and pops her bubblegum,
the earth in one palm,
the ocean in the other,
they bow and bless the roots her footprint leaves behind.

temptation is one of her other names.
the one meant to scare you less.
ravenous is her dripping tongue, intangible her silken fingertips,
irresistible the claws just beyond.
a siren’s voice isn’t honey like they say,
it melts thoughts into candle wax and burns the wick to a crisp.

she is mother and sister and friend, 
nobody at all and everyone you have ever wanted to be. 

she is me, she is you, she is my water glass with lip prints and a lightbulb burning out,
she is ivy
just
out
of
touch.

gilded frame glides around the surface,
encapsulating enamored eden in the flesh,
finger touches to no boundary. 

be enamored by it; i know i am. 

BRANCUSI’S THE KISS

the one, the end-all-be-all
the searing skin and melting heat 
sticky arms honey has glued onto your neck
heartbeat; mine then yours then mine again, 
i have echoed your life and you me  
strands; tangled hair and saliva and sinew with a perfect memory and electrodes lighting up red

my cyclops of close proximity, all whites and no color 
do you see the same in me? do you know what color my eyes are?
the way i know the yellow of your teeth and the pink of your gums? 
they say that the sweat of a lover is always sweet,
and yours tastes like verandas and midafternoon 
but i can’t see what difference it makes in this moment.

when we peel back the layer, peel from each other
you will be cool to the touch.
your eyes will be brown. mine will be blue. 
cherub cheeked sistine madonna blush, 
backward glance, 
my temple still filled with pressure, still red with touch,
the only remnants of THE KISS,
first to meet, last to say goodbye.

i regret nothing, except your name. or lack thereof.