Non, chérie, cherries are insipid. Life is like—
Life is the liquid darkening your glass:
The hardness of rotwein, its full-voweled pleasure
Pressing on your tongue, or corners of a smile
Rounded by the soft-lipped vin rouge, rolling gliding
Caressing the roof of your mouth as words dissolve
In burning sweetness.
The menu, merci. Read it
And let the taste etch itself, birthmark-like, on
Your throat, the novelty relived each time
Your tongue embraces the air between syllables,
Drenched in rich layers, lost in the repetition
That makes the intelligible less so.