i will taste poison and become poison

Tulips

I will taste bedroom.
I will taste nerve, and threadbare
skin, strawberry soft.
I will taste candle wax and knitting pearls
still crossed between forefingers, loop upon orangey
loop. I’m going to taste photographs of tulip rivers
where old women in yellow hats needle
the soil with their knees.
I’ll taste carpet dust tumbleweeding
through living rooms,
and white-laced pillows that catch
in my teeth. I will taste gamma. I will taste
Ohio widely in the yolk yellow morning
before I read the Etta from stereo. I will taste
the way Roman soldiers tasted their lovers’
tongues, deep in blue night, under the many sweeping
dresses of falling stars. I will taste and agonize at tasting.
I will taste cactus green, gorgonzola, mint leaves
waltzing in saucepans. I’m going to taste like elms
in lightning. I’ll taste
right in front of you so that you can watch
the way I have learned to savor. I will taste
chaste as saints.
I will taste beyond the lips
of my ability to taste. If only for one moment, if only
for the marrow in the bone of one moment I can taste multitudes,
entirely, unbearably, drowning against and again under
the buds of tasting you, like blackberry.