I cup your four flavors in my mouth:

bitter, sweet, salty, sour.

The tastes are male and female:

the miracles of a girl’s first blood,

her first lover’s sweat.

The various ways to know emptiness.

I might have known a river of wanting.

But the tides of your body mark

where I am hungry still,

a salver on a table without salt.

As if I am a meat that needs feeding,

you hunt me only to serve up yourself,

a food to be used entirely,

even the pulse, even the breath.

Here is a secret:

when your mouth purls over my breasts

what I crave crawls into me.

The stilled creature of your heart

lays out its sweet flesh.

I say mine is a woman’s body,

here is what I mean:

I have felt milk sweeten in these breasts

and know the pelt of desire is its own trophy.