Firestorms (Desire’s Eyeteeth)

Firestorms (Desire's Eyeteeth)

When venom trickles acid from your lip, I peel
away my remaining smiles, grow my eyeteeth
and go to war.  Wolverine-toothed, sniper-eyed,
and foaming with fire, I mean to make you tremble. 
Your voice ricochets through a throat of stone,
slices me, shrill and sharp as leaky mansion windows. 
Wilted in your anger light, I pour my caustic stare
into your face until my eyeballs scorch
and wither.  You refuse to capitulate.
Beneath each of my skins blows a desert
of windblown sparks, a heart of cinder.
Driven perhaps by astonishment or boredom,
you ask if I would come to bed. I taste the tears
brightening your eyes, the salt
and sorrow of them, and turn away.
Already, I've forgotten which shreds
of your words offended and catapulted me
toward rage.  I wish you held in your hands
first the blossomed fantasy of my truth and then
my face.  Otherwise, whom would you touch
tonight?  Should I drain the moat, swing open
the door to some old remembered mermaid wife
or an invading dream-breasted and antlered witch?
Outside, cicadas whine, drone and parch,
but heat never keeps you from your delightful
and deft desire. Yes, I will come to bed.
We may regret these firestorms we ignite,
but they blaze two ways. Yes, take my hand. 
Your touch soothes me, rouses me, is sweeter,
wiser and hungrier than all these filed yellow
teeth and useless tears strung between us
like broken pearls and opals.



Mary Stebbins Taitt
090805-1800-3h(10), 090804-2047-1b(2), 090804-2038-1st