revante

therese tongues the top of her mouth,
the tip of her lips
her thighs abandoning ship,
she shifts,
in eighty six percent humidity,
she tries to sleep.
i’ve seen this face
sewn between
a series of nineteen forties magazines,
or mirrored images,
girls of thirteen and twelve.
tearing pages from a calendar,
my Norman Rockwell wet dream
clings to the kitchen wall.
therese sits stretching
the freshest pair of boyish knees
worn and red,
from an afternoon,
in blistering heat.
watching boys be boys from a bench,
she‘s stuck between
the features of a girl
and a woman.
positioned politely next door is cat,
he licks, laps
as therese taps her red-bowed feet
and Balthus reveals little
of what’s tightly tucked beneath,
just enough to make
therese seem incomplete.