Tonight's Poet Corner: Oil On Atlas

Oil On Atlas
by Belinda Roddie

The surrealist
tastes like cherries
twisted into pretzel knots
woven into a boat that delivers
the princess to her melting
betrothed. He is draped over
a single cushion. He is
the same color
as that single cushion.

He is hungry all the time,
and when his beloved
disembarks from the chariot,
he screams for avocados.
He will only eat avocados.
He dreams in mobile
avocados. They are hungry
for him, too.

You take the surrealist's
claws. They are as soft
as clouds on violet days.
They are as soft as clouds
on rainbow suicide days.
You kiss her, and she becomes
salt on your lips. You kiss her,
and she turns to gold-painted
titanium. You kiss

her, and the princess
runs into a field that grows
hair from its nostrils, feeds
on black bread crumb gravel
and chewed off fingernails,
feeds on second thoughts
and double the chances,
all blended together in
a smoothie and swallowed
like fire in one go.