Blood and lipstick femininity
My heels crack concrete
Redder than wine
Smile in the corner
Snarl along the fangs
I bite what’s mine to claim it
Eat it whole and raw
Black dress, fiery hair
Hips like an empress
I know you think you’re king
Baby, I’m a lioness
You’ll eat what I hunt
Lick the gore from my lips
My slavering red mouth
My feminine blood and lipstick

Sweet Centerless Sixteen
by Michael R. Burch

Inconsolable as “love” had left your heart,
you woke this morning eager to pursue
warm lips again, or something “really cool”
on which to press your lips and leave their mark.

As breath upon a windowpane at dawn
soon glows, a spreading halo full of sun,
your thought of love blinks wildly—on and on ...
then fizzles at the center, and is gone.

Keywords/Tags: humor, light verse, sweet, sixteen, never, kissed, lips, lipstick, puppy, love, infatuation, flirt, flirting, short attention span

Once
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Once when her kisses were fire incarnate
and left in their imprint bright lipstick, and flame,
when her breath rose and fell over smoldering dunes,
leaving me listlessly sighing her name . . .

Once when her ******* were as pale, as beguiling,
as wan rivers of sand shedding heat like a mist,
when her words would at times softly, mildly rebuke me
all the while as her lips did more wildly insist . . .

Once when the thought of her echoed and whispered
through vast wastelands of need like a Bedouin chant,
I ached for the touch of her lips with such longing
that I vowed all my former vows to recant . . .

Once, only once, something bloomed, of a desiccate seed—
this implausible blossom her wild rains of kisses decreed.

Published by The Lyric, Writer’s Journal, Grassroots Poetry, Tucumcari Literary Journal, Unlikely Stories, Poetry Life & Times. Keywords/Tags: kisses, fire, incarnate, lipstick, dunes, *******, heat, lips, breath, sighs, passion, desire, lust, ***, bachelorhood, recanted

A baby's face, in bows & lace
The blush of widened eye
The muzzle of a unicorn
The rainbows in a sigh.
The shining pearl within a conch
The place where virgins lie.

The bubbles blown by teenagers
The hearts on sleeves of same
The subtle hue of lipstick
With which they spell your name
Shirley's locks & lollipops
To them love's all a game!

Fluff & play! Valentine's Day!
Roses in her cheeks
The colour of amoré
If she lets you take a peek!

Chocolate covered cherries
In a golden foil box
The colour of a diary
Closed & sealed with locks.
The colour of a fantasy
Gold & pearl clocks.

What a warmth this hue elicits!
More charming than you'd think
Innocent... explicit

The exquisite color... PINK!

Your memories stain my mind like your lipstick

On my mugs. The scent of you intertwined with coffee.

At this empty table I sit, my body a shell.

I remember you across from me, adding milk

Into my cup. I can still picture the past

Too well. I can’t say this isn’t fair.



From the moment you saw my eyes wander at the fair

I knew you no longer wore your lipstick

For me. What we had was now in the past.

We still kissed, but now we wouldn’t share our coffee;

No longer did we share the small things. Milk

No longer in my cup, bitter brew filling my shell.



I miss your presence, allowing me to shell

Out the love I held for you. Is it fair

To want you here? I want you to add milk

To my cup even though I hate it. Your lipstick

Stain, still on my mug, mixing your flavors with my coffee.

I still haven’t wiped it off to protect our past.



I wasn’t this addicted to you in the past

But I’ve begun to hate this empty shell.

I’ve never hated sharing love with you. Now coffee

With you no longer exists. Not after the fair.

You no longer stained mugs, you only placed somber lipstick

Upon my mouth. A mouth who can’t stand coffee and milk.



I don’t know how I took it for so long. Milk

Made me sick. What happened is in the past.

It matters not where you place your lipstick

Whether your stains are on my mug, or my shell-

There is no question that this is fair.

I didn’t appreciate your love in our coffee



Now I cannot tell you how much that coffee

Means to me. How much I miss it with milk.

I wish I could say what you did wasn’t fair.

I still cannot rid myself of our past.

I want to wipe you off my mugs, off my shell.

You’re gone, but I can still see your lipstick.



I sit alone, drinking coffee with our past.

No longer is milk filling my vacant shell.

Is it really fair to long for your lipstick?

I leave lipstick stains
to mark my territory:
not on any significant other,
not even on cups or water bottles,
but on the cheeks of my mom and dad and brother
if he'll let me.

I have a stick of dark purple,
and another of bright pink,
and when I say my "good bye" and "I love you,"
I leave a ruddy mark.

My dad brags about me,
he says, "My senior still talks to me,"
and when I hear this second-hand I preen
and call him and talk to him some more.

My mom is the one who tells me this,
and she laughs at my antics,
me swelling up in pride,
because she thinks I'm hilarious.


Later, I wave in at her
while she's in some important meeting,
and she smiles and waves back, along with
three other members of that committee.