Monet Painting

If you were a Monet painting,

I would dip my fingers into your flesh

And tear you open just to see

Your pretty pastel insides.

I would rip open your water lily outsides

To see if you painted your

Beating heart tucked away

Behind those bright white bones

In the same pretty pink hues.

.

If you were a Monet painting,

I'd sink my thumbs into the corners

Of your eyes and pop them out

Just to examine them in spring sunlight.

I would pull out your tongue,

Look at its gloss and taste the shadow

Cloistered behind your teeth.

I want to disturb the surface of you

And gorge myself instead on this impression.

.

If you were a Monet painting,

I'd steal you from the museum

Just to set fire to you in my own backyard

Because beauty is best when it's destroyed,

When it's shifting between fire and ash.

I want to watch the edges of you burn.

So let me reverently touch your oils.

Let me burn you away and swallow your smoke.