X-Acto Blade Sephora

Red ribbon on a satin cream shift

before a 6th grade choral concert. 

My makeup artist mother 

taught me how to blend lipstick:

Burgundy, carmine, maroon—

layered with painter’s precision

over chapped, flaking skin.

Guiding my nervous hand,

she couldn’t have imagined  

that wine-stain shade 

someday colliding with your plum lips

until our mouths mirrored the bruises

darkening on your pale breasts.

Red ribbon on a satin bra— 

now my knife slides down your thigh

and again I am a painter,

smearing rust and sweat and salt

on a twitching, throbbing canvas.

You guide my trembling hand

with murmured assurances 

that you’re alright, and I’m alright—

as right as we can be on this hard mattress,

spiced rum sticky on the sheets

3 hours before your train.

I lacerate skin and then silence

when you shriek, “It tickles!”

as if that’s a reasonable reaction,

and I’m a reasonable person.

As if most people carve flesh

instead of just kissing it.

My hands are cherry, copper, scarlet—

and steady when I place them over your lips.

(2015)