Once bitten you have lost
your shyness. Now you search
the desert by lamp-light
bare your carotid in invitation –
come on man, find me again.
You touch yourself in the mirror,
scars from his kiss when he drank
and you lost control. Remember
the screams, your words warbled
a magpie’s call, even now you
quardle after him. Hungry,
you can’t stop thinking of his
throat, you are unquenchable
and his coldness sets your need
on fire. Desperate, you go knocking
in daylight. In one house you find
a teenage boy with his bearing,
his younger brother? The boy rejects
your offered Book of Mormon
says he’d rather write his own.
From the tenor of his voice you know
his Adam’s apple is Red Delicious.
Sandi Sartorelli
