For A Man With Guava In His Mouth

by Sharon Olinka

This is for the day your lips
parted, and I sucked
guava candy, melting in your mouth.
Candy bought the week
your mother died.

Nothing could have gotten
you to go back, just that,
her death, memories too strong
of police thugs, threats
of arrest and torture.

Then your escape.
Flight from friends,
from family, enclosed
world of the University
of the Andes, to New York
and subsequent poverty.
You dreamer, fighter,
believer in truths
of the body.

Your skin of
muscled silk.
The beauty mark near
your waist, so like
mine. Your cock
an exact fit, to the hilt.
No matter when you
entered, I was yours. Open
and wet. Your love of
figs, chocolate, and grapes.
Your teal blue eyes,
like mist on water.
Thin chest that made me
feel each time I held
you was the first,
encircling you, protective.
Your murmuring and cries,
as you rested
in my ocean.

Who would burst
out the door
as you did, in a light jacket
during a snowstorm, just
to be inside me?

I fooled myself I could have you.
Other women ruined you.
A bad mother beat you
with coat hangers.

Only once
did a guava sweetness
briefly enter my mouth.