Sestina for a Saturday Morning

by Kirk Shimano

My love for you is mint toothpaste:

Deep blue, pure, and cleansing.
Leave my love on the bathroom counter
And it will only solidify, like magma,
It shines in the sun, iridescent,
Distracting my view from your rather large teeth.

Come! Brush your teeth,

Not only with metaphor, but with toothpaste
And toothbrush. Your smile is iridescent
But I fear your mouth needs cleansing
And your breath is like magma
As it melts the flowers on the counter.

Please. Come to the counter

And stop gritting your teeth.
Your gaze scalds like magma
But my love cools…like toothpaste!
It excels at scraping away and cleansing
Your mortal exterior to show your true iridescence!

Oh yes, of course, your exterior is also iridescent!

And if I had a counter
For all the times your cleansing
Lips saved me, I’d count more blessings than I have teeth!
And the flowing toothpaste
Of my love burns like molten magma –

What do you mean, you don’t know what magma

Is? I’ve been using it this whole damn iridescent
Poem! But I digress! The toothpaste!
It is poised on the counter
For even the lowliest simpleton knows that teeth
Need a daily cleansing.

But perhaps you need more than a cleansing.

Perhaps a bath in magma
Or a fist into your teeth.
Your nose is iridescent.
And I can see that, on the counter,
We are at the end of the tube of toothpaste.

So let the toothpaste in your teeth remind you of me,

For I shall be at the counter of a bar, far away, cleansing
The memory of you with a keg of iridescent magma.