Pitcher

 

I’m such a flirt.

My opened pet-

als fill with dew

drops, saucy fillips

down a tube’s lop-

sided top, scalloped

as any trollop—look

like puckered lips,

arched lids, if not

the curves of fish-

hooks or a turned

up skirt. —Oh, you

would spot my put-out

pout in any sputter

of wind with your fine

proboscis & spiffed hairy

legs. Now, I may be over

-done, but I make-do.

Give you lip? You bet.

Honey, I’m really deep

throated & also noted

for my in-folding down

-ward pointing exits, forked

tongue, spoon-like mid-

riff. I’m never a drag.

I’m so fond to lolly-

gag & giggle, a silly goose,

you prolly think I’m Polly-

anna, another dumb blonde

who worries how she cuts

her figure? Why yes I’m used

to always being on the fly,

alas, with sassy rinky-dink

pink dresses loose & frilly.

Some say I’m cute enough

to die for, a potted mouth

Molly, not a gelded lily, but

a carnivore—I have such

taste; pitfalls aplenty to make

you trip down south into

my slick trapdoors.

I could lap your fly-

blown parts, lick sap &

à la carte your spit then

snatch the chance to

slip you down my hatch.

Every boy thinks I’m quite

the catch. I sell the sizzle

and then eat your meat,

your whole heart out.

Will Cordeiro received his MFA and Ph.D. from Cornell University. His work appears or is forthcoming in Crab Orchard Review, Copper Nickel, Cortland Review, CutBank online, Drunken Boat, Fiction Southeast, Phoebe, Sentence, and elsewhere. He is grateful for residencies from ART 342, Blue Mountain Center, Ora Lerman Trust, and Petrified Forest National Park. He lives in Flagstaff, Arizona, where he is a faculty member in the Honors Program at Northern Arizona University.