Kim has a hairless cat that looks like an old man with a wrinkled neck.

“Euuww, it’s bald.” I observed, when I first saw it.
“It’s hypoallergenic.” she says.
“I read that it’s the cat’s saliva, from grooming - not the fur that people are allergic to.” I instruct.
“What if you were allergic to your boyfriend's saliva?!” she wonders.
“Dang, that means a rash ALL OVER, I suppose!”
We noddingly agree.

Open your mouth
Let me see your tongue
Tell me how it tastes

Is it sweeter
Seeping with blood
Cut at the tip

Trace the edge
With the knife
Make it taste

Like me

Hold out your hand
Let me see your fingertips
Tell me how they feel

Are they smoother
When they’re slick
With saliva

Trace my skin
With your tongue
Make it soaked

With blood

Three orange lights
waiting in a cue.
Warm, pudgy and sweating.
Squeezing the last drop
of pure sweetener
down your throat.

Delicious syrup
growing and spreading
on the finger tips.
Feeding the eager.
Melting bright nectar
dropping down the thighs.

Saliva sprinkels
on the piano lips.
Playing chants
of lust and thirst.
Lavish liberation
buzzing for more bees.

In the realm of rumour
wise men suggest
when it is dark enough
you will see the stars

In the fury and the mire of human veins
fragments of dreams and memories
used to spring loose

from my crowded mind
unsettled, darting dreams
shouting slogans in the noisy air.

In the kingdom
of saliva and dust
I have ceased to dream

And soon
I will soon cease
to exist.


© M.L.Emmett