Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples: for I am sick of love.
          —Song 2:5¹

                    i. Out of Eden

How vessels burst, bruising toward surface
purged thrusts of purple-tongued messages, each
of which purses lips, discourages taste
in favour of this flesh quaking thirst, floods

at the touch, the debased fingertips of
lust blistering themselves against perverse
desire’s wounds, ruining with sweat kisses
remove dirty thoughts until each one rusts,

running offense into spread orifices
indecency deluges anew, wets
with primal, instinctual truths this
cavernous groove my mouth favours, forsakes

     every litany of taboos, list
     of pained sacrileges, to savour, paint

                    ii. Into Exile

sacred what I profane and glimpse work its
magic this ache which lingers well past our
lungs collapsing in song, cries, resonates,
longs for your longing long after left up

all night mourning, pursuit of an ideal
worth earning gone so wrong, less fortunate
or more, depending on my allure, to
be yearned for hard, or not at all, your blood

warmed by the one who just ignores you, his
fists of unfulfilled promises leave you
sore, foregone, if only we had been blessed,
forewarned, better informed, how for unchaste

     amateurs how difficult this hubris
     turns, beware paramours transformed by fate.

__________
¹“Song of Solomon”, Chapter 2, Verse 5, in “The Old Testament” of Holy Bible: King James Version, published at Grand Rapids, Michigan by Zondervan in 2007; page 432.