After the Reception

 
You turned your head twice at Simone Oliver

as she snaked by us in a fitted, black sheath dress

that showed off her well-toned arms

from a year of carrying around the twins

she'd adopted from Beijing,

but tonight Simone was no mommy –

this was understood by everybody;

tonight, she was suddenly sexy

in the afterglow of grown-up conversation

as I shape-shifted into something altogether different,

something in proximity to you at the reception,

something inanimate and dense –

a floor lamp turned off,

a hard-back chair unoccupied,

a fireplace mantle balancing a clock, candles, car keys of guests.

I am your homely wife,

whom you will later undress and devour

after the reception, in the cover of darkness.

Halves

You told me over lunch,

over hot quesadillas

inside a mock, Spanish-style villa

that I was your other half,

and I believed you for a split second,

believed I could be sliced and pried,

exposing the juiciest parts of myself;

and those papaya-like black seeds,

all my little black deeds

freckling that opened flesh

for you to suck and swallow whole.