ONE WEEK

For one desperate week she wanted you,

To gnaw your cracked cuticles until they bled,

Then drain them dry, your bloods commingling. In bed

She conjured up your eyes as green, not blue,

And pleased, instead of pleading to undo

The spell she'd cast. Desire gave her head-

Aches, stirred her ovaries, made her hipbones spread,

Her spine stack, her toes curl inside each shoe.

You never knew. But I did. So I pissed

A ring around you to keep her out, disinterred

The local vampire, asked when she'd been bitten,

Wore the peacock pumps you couldn't resist,

Crossed off each day, not worried or deterred,

Reading her like a book that I had written.