GENE DIAMONDS

Sweating sweet Paris

I sat in Hemingway’s writing café

Closerie des Lilas

talked heads or tails with a waiter

whose greasy eyes slid across my breasts,

crashed past the first base of my neck,

unbuttoned my blush with his teeth,

sharking at the smell of my salt.

He wiped away heat from his gums with his tongue.

Asked about my poems and if I would write him one.

I said I no longer commit without commitment.

So he left.

Five minutes later he returned

with a paper napkin rolled up like a ring.

He bent to one knee, soaked in awkward broth.

I accepted the ring, unrolled it, wrote the following:

Dearest Jean Luc—

I don’t wear diamonds.

Heirlooms are exempt.

Your Grandma’s karma

is your Grandma’s problem.

My father stole and gave my mother

a crystal door knob

from a door at the hotel

they could never afford to stay in.

She keeps it on the windowsill,

lets it catch the light and blind her

at random points during the day.

He was in love.

She drank an entire bottle of tequila,

then ate the worm at the bottom.

Told him, “You are rich.

Take a smile to the bank.”

It was my father’s forearms

that kept her ribs moving,

fingers on the keys

of melodic breathing.

She was in love.

They’ve been married

twenty-five years.

They’re still in love.

So tell me, Romantique,

may I sharpen my teeth on yours?

Don’t bring your emotions

into this.

I need a simple

yes or no

that involves little to no

poetics or sweat.

We shall consummate our agreement

between lips covered in fragments of stars

that fell into our hangovers

while we were drunk on elsewhere.

You can write your own alphabet

on the juvenilia of my legs

pressed against your pupils

for the first time.

My thighs are bibles.

Spread the word.

This is not a poem, just a sermon

etched on the bullet I’m placing within you.

I’ll burrow into your heart and explode.

Stand at the rubric of what most puzzles you

and bend me brilliant.

Let’s find a quiet corner somewhere and beat it up.

Lean onto my mouth,

lower your voice down

into mine like a rescue worker.

Let your chords cripple.

My cunt crunched like tin foil.

Press against my war

with your index and middle

like loaded, explosive double barrels.

Let my trigger pull you.

Amber Rose

of Elsewhere