© Paul Zarzyski. All rights reserved. These words may not be reprinted or reposted without the author's written permission.

THE PUMMEL & PUMP, THE PUSH, THE FIX & THE TRIP

Autumn puts its overnight kibosh
on summer, buckles the hot
August knees with a crisp hook
to the liver, a definitive i-dotting
body shot, then drops it
with a sockdolager to the jaw. Rocked,
summer does the sunfish-
tossed-on-the-dock death
rattle flop. I, quivering, bones
chattering with thrill, lust after this
socked-in morning, thick air
pungent with whiffs of the unpicked
edible inky caps—words stirred
so near I can catch the staccato ticking
of my Muse’s red stiletto heels, Her hubris
as She takes Her blue-bile, not
nubile, vitriolic time back to daddy,
traipsing Her way, making me pay
in diamond-studded spades, in clubbed hearts,
for months of neglect. I, writhing now,
suffer Her comeuppance like a smack
addict locked with bucket,

blanket, bunk, and cold-turkey ghost
screaming from a windowless turret. All
I need, baby, please—pretty
please—baby, is one thin line,
albeit feeble, or even just two
ruby syllables, elbows hitched
symphonically in sync—a tease, a taste,
a sliver of sour cream raisin pie
a la mode with macadamia nut sprinkles
topped with a dollop
of something chocolate, devilish, a little
tiny slice of how, true or not,
I believe it used to feel
smothered in your dark, lithe arms, my face,
my spent brain pressed
between bicep and breast. Smothered—
yes, smothered—in your musky scent, I want
poetry’s musical perfume worked deep,
the morning after, into my pores,
into the sweetest cells of my honeycomb
lungs—so deep, I don’t care
if ever I breathe real air again.