I was looking through some old files and discovered this poem from 1997. It holds up pretty well. I wish I remember about whom the poem was written…but perhaps it’s best I don’t.

Yum

At dinner last week,
she wanted to be the wine,
something perfected
rather than destroyed by age,
and the week before that,
she craved shelf-life,
sitting untouched and unwanted
in an abandoned fall-out shelter.

Obsession being enough
to encourage appetite,
I ate of her, tasted
the awkwardness of her habits,
turned them into golden juice
dribbling down my chin,
transformed her affair
with apathy into fireworks,
her penchant for irresolution
into a perfect cantata.

This week, she is desirous
of all things fresh,
blooming fat and tender-red
in the center of the table.
Even now, she wants more,
which is perfect for me,
emotionally deaf by choice,
a thinking man’s Van Gough
who took the gift too far.