Marbled

Kavitha Rath

Dare to stay, I hold your chiseled

cheekbones in my fingertips

as the kudzu tendrils emerge

from the orgasmic peach walls,

encapsulate your marbleized body.

Your quiet fire seethes under the porous surface,

shimmers gold like a Bellini.

You circle me, in deep anger, witness to me

the swirl of dependent and independent thought,

try to rebuild my electrical wiring.

Am or am I not a woman on fire?

You reduce me to cinders.

Dreaming with you is more like a night terror

fused inside the wrought iron rails.

You sold me down the river once for lithium batteries,

now those would have been very incendiary.

It’s almost midnight, I look at the clock,

time to tie me up, use that crop.

Last night’s coffee sits on the table,

take it with a touch of sugar, light or dark.

It burns to crème brûlée,

a crackable, crystalline exterior.

I will come to you in your sleep,

an avalanche of flames in your mansion,

make and remake your slate of dreams

until you no longer know where you’ve been

or what you’re after.