Cupid’s Eve
When I go to parties,
My throat is filled with
Pre-knotted cherry stems,
And up my sleeve I save
A single, steel-sharpened dart.
I’ll rope you into bar-stool banter
And with my soured, honeyed lips
And with my small-talk smoother than oil
Your body and your mind are safely kept
Glued down to your seat.
And as the months go by
And you start to lose your ground
I’ll tell you the earth is the ceiling
Until you see it the wrong way around.
Sixteen daffodils on your table
Thirty chocolates in a box
Nineteen poems on your nightstand
—You roll your eyes when I say
I have an endless supply
In my scarlet, hollywood toolbox.
I laid a picnic for us beneath the April dogwood tree
I’ll distract you with whispers of sweet nothings
And tell you: “it must be a ringing in your ears—
Because I don’t hear a thing.”
How funny that you’ll never know the irony
In my faded, yellow jacket,
When I tell you the only nests in this tree
Belong to the birds
—Don’t look up.
I wonder why you check under your bed at night
When I’m already beneath your sheets.
Liza Rindell is a junior at SUNY Geneseo, where she is studying to become an elementary school special education teacher. Apart from writing, she enjoys playing tennis and piano.