‘Lap of Luxury’, ‘Selfie’ & ‘Silent Slang’
David Person
Lap of Luxury
My Cornish Rex, Imp, audits me with tameless acumen,
methodically digesting my pummeled bubble half-ponytail,
Japanese gin-varnished frilly denim, fatigued winged eyeliner,
a zingaro puddle of Prada Ocean perfume, sneaky nail file knives,
rumpled wine shop receipts, half-omitted bottles of green coffee pills,
lethal lipsticks all blabbing from the grained lambskin crossbody
I propelled leglessly onto the cream wool shag upon pickled entry.
Not all cats love catnips. They can’t taste the sweets they covet;
they sweat through the eighteen toes on their paws.
They boast three eyelids and heal themselves by purring.
Imp chatters spookily at the snail kites and little blue herons
who stop to freshen their drowsy wings on the branches
outside our cut stone patio. He is learning symbiosis
and the value of left-pawed high fives toward earning
freeze-dried minnows and mashed banana tuna treats.
He is also learning to interpret my condensation,
decoding my acute angles as I repent into Icelandic pillows.
Selfie
Shifting focus from the sharp skim of my cheekbone,
I direct my Galaxy Violet-dyed gaze
at the self-starting audience,
taking aim at their underfed hearts
with an unstable shotgun smile painted preppy red.
Rose gold gloss chastened into fishtails,
italicized with astute snowdrop ribbons.
Reheated champagne blush of electric fireplace
adorns the whittled tangents of my face,
glorifying my inner Ann-Margret in watercolor feathers
and tropical garden tiaras, searing cardinal lace.
Silent Slang
And where were you last moonbow—
hollowing out your dead larkspurs,
baking in the peony perfume?
Jeweled chiffon lights dress up your drunken cottage,
its spirited hearth soothing the turquoise forest.
Your lavish phoenix hair croons with promised secrets.
The rooftop roseate tern preens its pink wingbeats,
epitomized with a little black cap, festooned forked tail,
the puckish dexterity to enunciate black suns to serpentine seraphim.
I marvel at where it will murmur its secret garden adagio
full of lethargic leisure and fluid deflowering
come guttural gunmetal Christmas snow squalls,
the glaciating of the blue spruce,
a desensitized December sunset in Naptown.
Megan Denese Mealor resides in Jacksonville, Florida with her husband and 11-year-old son, who was diagnosed with autism at age three. Nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize as well as the 2023 Best of the Net, her writing has been featured in literary journals worldwide, most recently Bar Bar, The GroundUp, and Down in the Dirt. She has also authored three full-length poetry collections: Bipolar Lexicon (Unsolicited Press, 2018); Blatherskite (Clare Songbirds Publishing House, 2019); and A Mourning Dove’s Wishbone (Cyberwit, 2022). A lifelong survivor of bipolar disorder, Megan’s main mission as a writer is to inspire others feeling stigmatized for their mental health.
