The Dessert

The kitchen clock dissolves to dripping wax,

While walls of custard bleed a bruised, pale yellow.

A crescent moon, sliced clean by heavy axes,

Descends into a marsh where stars grow mellow.

Upon the floorboards—tide-worn, cracked, and older

Than any memory the calendar can keep—

A shadow lingers like a cold, broad shoulder,

Waking the conscience from a sugary sleep.

Here rests the relic of a vanished table:

A ring of crust, geography of sin.

Rich cocoa chasms, dense, opaque, and sable,

Swallow the light that dares to wander in.

It is no dessert, but a heavy portal

Built out of time, and cacao, and decay.

We taste the dusk, forgetting we are mortal,

And watch the afternoon curdle away.