my Pretty lover, You are an orange and i am a peach and together we make the sweetest juice Perfect for breakfast, a sweet slipping sip between bites Lovely when lunching, long languid lollygagging droplets lingering on your lips Decadent at dinner, an enticing evening aperitif. Take your time going down don’t waste a drop Tangy tart somewhere between us mingling, Freshly squeezed, freshly pressed What a delight to be devoured! Let me be your tomato red bride and know/no I won't wear white, I'll wear your favorite color on me, baby blue to match my eyes Moonstone strung around my neck. And i’ll be old and borrowed and new Oh my orange, how we were Sweet motherless children when we met, searching for homes making love to lorelei by the cocteau twins. I always thought i just couldn't hear it right but you told me the lyrics don't really mean anything, that they are more of a feeling than something with meaning but don’t we give it all our own meaning? Oh my orange, how i will always adore you Oh my peach, how you mean everything to me. Oh our juice, so sweet and so good.
Category: poetry
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my lover, the orange.
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aphrodite’s delight
here i am with you in the morning
dusky dawn
warm breath
legs intertwined
under cotton sheets
rosyfingered
sun on skin
aphrodite’s delight
overtaken, am i
with love for you
softness, curve, bend and flow
the dip of your hip
the way
your belly
fits against mine
soft skin. tender. mine under morning light.
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salt lick
i want, i want, i want…
to devour the crimson arch of her lips
the lazy lean of her long limbs
i want to consume
to annihilate
that pure stretch of bone and sinew
to strip away the rude vestige of humility keeping my hunger razor sharp.
insolent innocence—- give up and in already
slide to my side of the booth
slip those slender fingers inside the wound
salted sweetness, burning as it goes down.
carry me over the threshold
sweaty hands sliding on the white satin skirt, the last trace of girlhood soon gone.
perspiration hanging heavy on bare skin
a veneer of manners washed away in newfound knowledge.
there’s something soft under my cheek.
maybe- her hair. her worn tee shirt. the up and down of her heart, a clock ticking more regular than the one on my bedside table.
maybe- just my pillow. maybe just my own palm, the softest resting place for this heavy head of mine.
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daisy chains
What are we to do with this sour milk, beloved?
I think of my mother when I’m in your arms. I can’t help it.
These, my daisy chains, feel like home. This cage of expectations is the only safety I’ve ever known.
I’m not so sure I can give it up. I know you feel the hesitation in my touch. The guilt pooling at the ends of my fingertips as they drag, electric, down your summer stained skin.
You asked if I believed in hell. I believe in a God. I believe in springtime, which I think is the same as a resurrection. I believe that I have a choice. And I know that that terrifies me.
Hell is the thing under my bed. Hell is the thing hanging over my head. Hell is what I think is burning me up when I see the curve of your back and want to follow it with my lips.
When I throw my comforter aside in the sticky pit of summer’s night, a limp pink thing suffused in sweat and tears, is that heaven or is that hell?
Perhaps I call it purgatory, this in-between. From this murky cloud, I glimpse a heaven and a hell. Only, I can’t tell which one holds you.
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It will all be so good, so soon!
I do not presume to think myself her equal
I am satisfied to be her complement.
I am satisfied to have her listen to my ramblings
I am satisfied to have her smile at me
I am satisfied to admire the slope of her nose when she tilts her head to think
I am far beyond satisfied to know she is mine.
I’ve dreamed of her fourteen days in a row
They’re not always restful slumbers
Half the time I wake up, a damp cold seeping into my bones
Legs caught in twisted covers
Questions replaying through my mind like some exhausted melody
Who am I? Who am I to her? What might I become to her?
There are three words I am afraid to speak
Afraid of reciprocity
Afraid of the fact that as soon as I say them once I won’t be able to stop myself from saying them over and over again
At the end of phone calls
In signing letters
In poems and portraits and just in passing time.
I do not want to spoil it by saying too much too soon.
Good things, like tea, take a little time to brew.
And I will wait as long as is right, to make sure this good thing remains unbruised
She can tie my hair up with a periwinkle ribbon and I’ll brush the grass from her lilac skirt
The picnic basket will be stuffed with good things
Lavender lemonade and cherry turnovers and tomato sandwiches
The bumblebees will provide us the perfect white noise for an afternoon nap under the weeping willow
I can’t wait to hold her hand.
M. Katherine Noble 