You were reading The Bell Jar, looking stoic.
My boyfriend was looking at your legs, but
men are unimaginative. He was
picturing you naked.

I was picturing you dressed
in red leather, masked,
holding a glass of champagne.

Go ahead and shake
your hair loose like the long tail
of a blond fox wagging in the wind
of my low whistle,

kiss my thighs under moonlight and mean it,

so suddenly Plath in your dark dress, tapping
out sugar packets, bending my subtle stare
backwards over the table,

licking the cherry glaze from your lips,
lifting my skirt all in a rush.

This is what turns men on, when I rub
my knees just above my schoolgirl stockings,
stroke the gentle jut of my collarbone just so.
Is that the shade of want,

a blush creeping into your cheeks?
Alas! You’re lost in the sensual curves of a book
that tastes nothing like Hemingway
talking grizzly bears.

Sylvia was such a woman crawling
alone across her kitchen floor (probably barefoot).
The sharp commas of your naked calves
are alive. You’re kicking your high heeled boots.

I like that about you.

The man who loves me thinks my silence is anger
over his straying eyes, mumbles apologies
over coffee, but I’m all a-drizzle for a chick
and her lit, French-manicured,
femmed beyond fatale, who no doubt

bathes in Evian,
reads Cosmopolitan,
showers in perfume,
shits talcum powder

(if she shits at all).

My eyes are question marks,
little fingers probing your melting pot.
We could share our poetry, drink lattes,
watch soap operas and cry

together in the kitchen, gassed,
though I’ve never been much for Plath.

At least Bukowski knew when to drop
his book and get on
with the
fucking.

Amber Decker