Family Curse

The glass is stained with lipstick Yours or mine depends on the shade,
your peach fuzzy lips smudged sideways
or my apple-peel red ones sliced on the rim
I smell it,
that whiff of salty perfume
staining a scarf you wore
or that necklace that screams for sunlight
in my bedroom closet
I peer at photographs
stained in coffee-sepia
looking for the curve of a jaw like a bird’s wing,
the hint of hunger around the eyes,
the lack of an essence like a vitamin A need for swallowing,
for gobbling,
a panic held in unsteady check The need to lick cutlery,
our fingers grasping tongue-stained plates.

A Woman

She arrives on a siren Wings of sound and flashing lights
striking through the air around her Her face is a wall of stones
cracked and glowering Her eyes, used matches She glides to the sounds of alarms
in a waltz drenched in fear and neglect
like a dirty kitchen I smile as she throws herself my way She looks at me like a cockroach looks
at a light switch I flinch and she dances off,
an aged lemon rolling of a counter.