Guy Kettelhack

Eye Candy

It’s not just their obliterating charm:
your charm disarms as well.
You flirt reflexively: your life is one
metastasizing come-on; staving off,
and just a breath away from,
an unfathomable hell. The moment
mothers drop their babies into cribs
the babies wrap themselves in fibs –

manipulations and reprisals, smiles
and cries and coos and sighs
designed to pry and ferret out
an intimate attention – sufficiently
to dazzle so the love won't go away.
Today you're flippant with your men:
you beckon now to him, and then to him,
and afterwards to someone else:

you've got a dozen tricks up sleeves
and waiting on the shelf. Almighty
glorifying self! The sublimation of
a thousand yearnings – every single
one of which you think must burn
to this: a vacant face, unyielding lips:
rebuttal to a kiss: a charmless blink
from the abyss. Distractions rule:

choose wisely what will fool: insure
that it’s hormonally alluring: a sexual
and muscular seductive feast: arrays
of timbres, hues and melodies to tease
and please: a high and randy modus
operandi. To see, have, be eye candy –
whose hold on you will not release.
Damned wonders never cease.

What I Miss

I don't miss the man:
I miss what it felt like
the moment he left

on a Monday: sharp
tang in his T-shirt of sweat –
faint vibrations of voice

in the air. I miss what
was taken just seconds
ago from its having been

palpably there – bright
instant of aftermath: laughter –
the gasp – the sweet sigh:

the bright flash – just gone by –
of the glint of the spit
on his lips on my retina:

etched there in newness
all smitten and wet. I miss
what I nearly forget.