The Anthropomorphic Chest
of Drawers
interior revelation
© 2004 paddy gillard-bentley
she screamed into your dream
let me see all of you
I want to drink your soul
lick your teeth
suck the fungus from your toes
and you gazed naively
as the sand spilled through your fingers
followed by the flesh of your hands
until only the sinew and tendons
remained
she grabbed a handful of your face
and pulled open the first drawer
a frog hopped out
pursued by a beautiful tenor voice
singing something of regret
she dropped what she had in her hand
your voice instantly muffled
she slammed the drawer shut
love when they can’t talk back
and your hair hung like a curtain
over your passions
she smiled at you evilly
reaching for the two knobs at once.
twisting them in her fingers
laughing when you gasped
eyes squeezed shut
a bruised heart in the left drawer
lungs
gasping for air
in the other
she grimaced when she opened the fifth
there’s a poem about beans
what is it again?
and the contents lurched at her
as if in an act of rebellion
she delicately dropped her hanky
watching it float gently downward
to be sullied there
I haven’t the stomach for this
at the moment
she paused at the last
sighed deeply
I was hoping for a bigger one
she opened it slowly
lingering in the vision of your sex
she laughed
nice…hard wood
I’d trace the grain with my tongue
squeeze the sap out of it
but by then
you were already spent
she spit in the drawer
before
she walked away with the rest
to see the man hanged in the square
and your universe crystallized with her absence
and you didn’t know if
the world was melting
or it was just your eyeballs