Ars Poetica

I cover you in ink, the flavor harsh
on my eardrum. I eat words
ten syllables at once as we fuck
atop stacks of forbidden newsprint.

I spell you in grease
between the library stacks, the stains
Rorschach images of birds, of vines,
of mice that notch books, of their feces,
of tulips pressed between
pages — they had their time,
they shed petals one by one
like woodlice.

I have two words left. I lock them
away behind my bared teeth.