Love Poetry: We're Batter

by S. L. Sutton
(Chicago, IL, USA)

'I never know what I’m doing here.
Now I’m mixed in with the butter
and your long, long legs are no longer
the answer to filling up my deepest pans.

Open up your mouth.
I can’t make you any more salmonella promises, but I promise
I didn’t mean to leave you half-baked under wax paper bedsheets,
I just didn’t want to leave you in the oven
when I can’t see through the tainted glass
to tell if you’re finished or if your burnt ends
curl in

and not like your fingers laced through mine

‘cause the stupid metaphors act like stand-ins
for the phone call I probably owe you, I said

I’m sorry

but I don’t have it in me
to take one more one-sided heartbreak
when you’re more silent in the kitchen
than I am in the bedroom.
I gave you wine because I thought it’d make things easier
and, yeah, it was way too easy
after that.

When I lodged my toe in the elevator doors you ran after me
grabbed me
cascaded up and down the skyscraper’s throat
with me
and I’m still choking
on the words I meant to sew in like powder; here—

I’ve got you a raw spoonful.
We’re mixed in with the butter.
You know this.
We’re batter.
You know that
we're battered.
You know that
we're better
than this.'


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