Bitter Blue Balls

Bitter Blue Balls (1st February, 2009, 6.11pm)

At your words,
my heart cracks like an ice cube
as the gin hits it.

Leave the top off, sweetheart,
forgo the mixer;
let my throat smart.

An echo in the glass:
eyes burst with wounded pride;
blue-balled in verse.

Green, I choke, throat swelled to
find you’d got there first;
emulation would now
seem insincere;
brown-nosing, obsequious,
an interference in arrears.

Refill the pen
with drying ink; stain the refrain
as I reach the page’s brink.

Yellow, my liver recoils
as I swallow you,
lustful for more, drunk on lexis.

My absent spleen flexes,
my abdomen swollen in indignation;
your syntax vexes.

Black, I chose, for the figure
I used to cut; red dress now
for the ultimate indiscretion;
my confession,
abounding with compromise;
eyes corked with Sapphires.

Jennifer Pickup