Red on the Sky

by Savannah Stuitje

We are everything and nothing and dust on the wind
We are the burning maple tree, red on the sky
Sugar dripping onto the coals, the flames bright and angry
I will not be satisfied until I hold your heart between my teeth,
And my hands are inside you,
Playing among your bones, your steaming intestines
Until I have eaten your brain with knife and fork, sucked the marrow
from your ribs and wiped my lips with a linen napkin
Until you are looking down from my wall, your eyes glassy and cataract
spotted from where I have stolen your knowledge and savored it with a
fine brandy,
I will not be happy until I feel your arms around me in a new fur coat.
I will not breathe until your scent is gone from the wind
Until my ears no longer lie flat against my skull
Until your blood is on my hands, I assure you, I will not spill my own again.
We will toast my success in crystal glasses,
Praise the brilliant red of it, the hearty bouquet that assails us
I will not blink until you are gone from the places my mind goes when I drift
Between each spoken sentence, when I must ask others to repeat themselves
My mind wandered...
You will be scrubbed clean off me and discarded with yellow plastic gloves
And I will leave you standing at attention
Until your bones are aching with expectations as mine have,
Your eyes squinted with the cold, waiting for me,
Waiting to be let go,
Waiting to be remembered and taken home by the hand,
Until you give up and realize
You have been forgotten
I will leave you adrift in the falling snow
Your hands shaking, your breath short, your nostrils quivering
You will fall with melting snow on your cheeks.