i fell in love with a whore on new year's eve,

by Ewong Martines

for she told me more lies than truth—
exactly what my heart wanted a week
after all greeted me on Christmas day
but the one whose voice could cure
my sleeplessness, whose hands pacify

my shivers. in the damp light
of orange and gray she blanketed
my lips with her calculated warmth
then mapped my neck and chest and navel
with urban traffic that respects no holidays.

with nimble fingers i brushed her hair,
pulled hard in moments of beastly longing
for the shelter of my beloved’s breasts
whose milk could feed a thousand babies
in need of affection. i remember her

like i remember the sun, and in this paid
twilight of joy i remembered her still,
as mouths raided across napes and thighs,
tongues lost and found at every orb and slit.

the musk in the air had mixed with this
woman's cheap perfume when my thrusts,
mourning yet impassioned, hit harder
like ocean waves slapping nonchalant rocks.

her crimson nails clawed my back; she
squealed a pitch-perfect note of pleasure,
sang to a photograph of an erupting volcano
born again after centuries of being futile

and mysterious. it was barely dawn when i awoke,
the january fog blurring the mirror at the ceiling,
and there i was still haunted by the stench
of loneliness and misery of firecrackers.

the night felt too long like a whole old year.