an offering of green

cream avocado meat

from lemon rind hands

which sour and wrinkle my fingers when i try to hold them.

“welcome home. 

I love you.
have we met?”

the lick of the puppy tongue

on my skin like this:

I’m only warm when I’m treated warmly --
the fizzy boil of hot adrenaline

up and down my spine
like 
it’s desperately never felt the heat before,

is not a kind of warmth.

hungry fingers here on my vertebrae
finding out where the loose links are
- is not an adventure.
it smells of cold food, or stale fire,
the way something smells when it isn’t quite right

isn’t quite for consumption --
-- 
but almost

a gold-leaf paper bowl – no –

a lime flavoured bubblegum.
here: ******* a bubble, wince,

and I’ll pop it for you.

your eyes ache and squeeze when you eat sour sweets

because they’re almost something delicious,

but depriving, just

inside this cake there is sour cherry jam:

you hold out your sandpaper fist
and I don’t know whether it means
“this is the shape of a heart”

or if dinner just went cold