Cold water
tastes of black;

warm tea,
redolent with spice-red brown;

all cheeses
contain a trace of green,

and meats of all varieties
are purple as they go down.

Landscape art
on the teeth and tongue,

a portrait within me later.
There’s a golden tinge

in the bourbon that follows;
there was shell gesso

in my former hunger, orange bile
in my gluttony’s later gut.

I live like this, in agony,
stunned and overwhelmed by every meal.

I can’t stop the pictures.
I can’t eat enough to get to

the absence of light
I so long for.  And

I have tried, Lord,
I have tried.