AESTHETIC COULD KILL ME

I know this

from looking

                          into store fronts

                          taste buds voguing

alight from the way

treasure glows

                          when I imagine

                          pressing its opulence

into your hand

I want to buy you

                          a cobalt velvet couch

                          all your haters’ teeth

strung up like pearls

a cannabis vineyard

                          and plane tickets

                          to every island

on earth

but my pockets

                          are filled with

                          lint and love alone

touch these inanimate gods

to my eyelids

                          when you kiss me

                          linen leather

gator skin silk

satin lace onyx

                          marble gold ferns

                          leopard crystal

sandalwood mink

pearl stiletto

                          matte nails and plush

                          lips glossed

in my 90s baby saliva

pour the glitter

                          over my bare skin

                          I want a lavish life

us in the crook

of a hammock

                          incensed by romance

                          the bowerbird will

forgo rest and meals

so he may prim

                          and anticipate amenity

                          for his singing lover

call me a gaunt bird

a keeper of altars

                          shrines to the tactile

                          how they shine for you

fold your wings

around my shoulders

                          promise me that

                          should I drown

in want-made waste

the dress I sink in

                          will be exquisite

                                                          –       for Dominique 

Xandria Phillips

is the author of Reasons For Smoking, which won the 2016 Seattle Review chapbook contest judged by Claudia Rankine. She hails from rural Ohio, and inherited her grandmother’s fear of open water. Xandria is the poetry editor for Honeysuckle Press and the curator of Love Letters to Spooks. You can find her poetry in Beloit Poetry Journal, The Journal, Nashville Review, Ninth Letter, The Offing, and elsewhere. 

Contributions by Xandria Phillips