JuPo Challenge 5 - long poem and a stab at humor (which I rarely write)

This Thing I Have With Asphodel

Her name is as exotic as saffron, secretive
as the sphinx and alluring as a porcelain
moon. She hides herself in folds of silk
that slip through my fingers when I try
to wrap them around; this feast or famine
witch who conjures scents of cinnabar, smoke
and myrrh; this Scherazade who weaves
adept tales in my head.

She’s an artist who tattoos my gray lobes
with words and images that melt glaciers
or hoar the heads of unfurling flowers; she
assembles turns of phrase that make me weep
with desire or shrivel like a prune from envy -
these words I’d whore for.

She wields them often and glories
in her gift of excess; yet her thin, miserly graces
stop her short of sharing. I am left staring
at a blank page while she chortles, smug
and satisfied with the torture she inflicts;
this wordmeister of mine who eats the last piece
of my cherry pie and leaves me no crumbs.

She only comes out of hiding when I’m bulleting
down the freeway or in the middle of a tango
with some guy who’s told me he’s sincere (liar);
and if I should stop and grab a pen she pulls
the silk around her again like the poem tease
that she is. That bitch

makes me itch in places my pen’s end
can’t reach. She should cease her eelish ways,
for when I snag herI will bind herand vampire
every word that courses through her veins,
watch her drool as my cherry pie disappears.

copyright 2006 by cookala