[A]nd in my throat I felt the Gordian knot of all the loves that might have been and weren’t.
          —García Márquez¹

                    i.

Impure. Acrid as chicken liver
bitten before its chrome glint mustards
toward a glimpse slitting while given
tears. Wincing remorse yellowing words.

Threading course, vomit spit nourishes
prepares for its bursting forth. Bitter
as metaphors in the mixture, this
batter coats with bilious burn gizzards,

in turn, transformed by a bite. Sliver
of his name buried like a knife hides
until rises again, tides by verbs’
pull to pool above what below wends

          its own scorching road. Lets discover
          this aching with humiliation

                    ii.

his whole body endures. Downriver
of composure, how that moniker
mocks with force its own power. Driven
to never be ignored, these cowards

he makes of each being adored, the
longed-for thing these admirers he lures
with desire his own perverts. How, then,
to pronounce what death occurs to hearts

troubled by the waters this trickster
mister poisons to sulfur, devours
as though his love’s offer were never
more than thirst choked with purple ribbon?

          Better, then, to not live forever
          swallowing him, who comes unbidden.

__________
¹Gabriel García Márquez, “[Chapter] 2”, in Memories of My Melancholy Whores: Translated from the Spanish by Edith Grossman, published at New York by Vintage International in 2006; page 53.