He asked if we’d done anything scary lately. Even, perhaps, terrifying.

Such a strong word, that. I don’t know if I am really terrified of anything I’ve been wanting to do. Except maybe… maybe sharing my sexy-pie poems.

Perhaps you didn’t know this about me? That I have a thing for love poems? And I write them incessantly. And I hardly ever share them.

The terrifying part? (Okay, or maybe just a little scary.) I’ve been toying with the idea of not only sharing my sexy-pie poems but perhaps publishing a whole book of them. I’ve even got section essays in my head. One of them is called Sexy Pie. (No surprise there, now, huh?) The others might be called Birthday, Rabia, and Poet’s Kiss. Or something like that. It’s all in there, in my head, asking me if I have the courage to let it surface.

Maybe I won’t ever have the courage. Maybe I’ll just start here today with a couple of poems. And hope you’ll like them, if only a little.

*

Rolling

Is there such a thing
as disposable sexy pie?
Does it come in aluminum, flimsy?

*

Mulberries

I have never seen one,
he said,
speaking of the mulberry tree.

They are large, I told him.
It is hard to reach the berries,
though some branches weep down,
and in the weeping
your chance is granted.

Dark, dark purple, I told him. Indigo maybe.

The stain goes deep.
It will ruin your clothes, I told him—
even as you can’t stop yourself
from taking more
and more and more and more.

*

Tilt

This morning, in the sunset yellow dining room,
I held the Princeton to my lips, its handle soft
between my thumb and tiny index finger,
its gold rim imperceptible to taste, but circling
nonetheless.

Lazy, perhaps, or careless, I had seated the Princeton
in the Profile saucer (also white, also fine bone). Still.
When I held it close, and towards the light, my left hand
joining the embrace, I thought to ask you this:

Did you know, if you tilt the bone just right,
you can see the fingers silhouetted, on the other side.

*

After Reading Videlock at Suppertime

There were no plums today,
but in the hands of the right man
a round of ravioli, heated right,
with (hot hot!) fra diavolo, would be pay enough.
And we needn’t dress the salad much.

*

Replenish

Remind me, would you,
to buy more of the Peach Momotaro,
with its images of waterfalls, lichen-toned
terraces, waves of mountains imprinted
with dots, little white flowers, and mist.
When I drink it, and the steam enters me,
I think of you and the water feels as if
it’s pouring over the mountains.

*

Photo by Claire Burge. Used with permission. Post by L.L. Barkat, author of Rumors of Water: Thoughts on Creativity & Writing

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