Peanut Crunching at Sylvia's Table

Peanut Crunching at Sylvia’s Table

Of the peanut crunchers, I am one.
I have a heart - plush red seat, first row,
I squint, take out binoculars, adjust them
again and again.

Of the muck - mud slingers, I am blackened
from poking the ashes of the bonfire of your life.
I wipe soot from my fingers onto my brazen
burning cheek.

Of the poetic sludge - sluts, I am the slipshod
slapper. Cross - referencing the photos, the
tattered tittle - tattle. Grabbing gossip as I
shamefully submerge into your psyche.

Of the Godless Goddesses, you are the one.
The literary Marilyn, acting out our nightmares
Of betrayals,a panicked butterfly
between two mugs of milk.

Of the eternally prurient, we have all become one.
Shuffling our assumptions, like your pack of cards.
We are dazzled, dreamy, from the soap - opera
suicide that jellies our eyes.

The necropolis is silent, save for the sound of the gasp - gaping shells, mouthing a crack
under my shoes.

I sieve through the debris that the popcorn professors
have shed. I salvage luminescent kernels, melt soft and sad on my tongue.

They provide me with the protein to cry.
I proffer this, my only sacrifice.
A saline apology.