Erika Saldivar
Tongue Like Lime

Sorry, he says, these feelings must be placed on a shelf. “There is no fucking shelf,” I say, and pick up my purse to leave.

Tap-tap down slick streets echo my tall boots he said keep those on but lose the pants to. In my pocket, jutting like his eager erection is the toothbrush he bought for overnight stays. He liked the blossoming curls and scent of my hair like jasmine on his pillow.

“What’s this?” I asked when he handed me a plastic drugstore bag.
“I’d like for you to start spending the night instead of always leaving, and so you’ll need this. It comes dentist recommended.”
I looked inside.
“It’s pink.”

Later, I sit on my porch in impromptu ritual. Holding the toothbrush above my lighter’s flame, I watch the plastic bristles melt. Sour smoke phantoms against the light of streetlamps.
I wonder why I am bothered over this rabbit-lover, childish and without technique in bed. But I liked his thin body, fragrant sweet-bread dough in my massage. I craved the high of holding his guava flesh limp in my tiny palm, awakening to taste my bold words, ripe as mangoes.

“Who is she?” I asked.
“A girl I’ve known for years. We grew up together as friends, but lately it’s developed into something more.”

“I don’t remember you mentioning her.”
“The man she knows is different from the one you see,” he said and looked away.
He proposed to her on one knee beside the bed we shared earlier that morning. She is the kind of woman men get down on one knee for. But I am the kind of woman he got down onto both knees to trace thighs smooth as cocoa butter. I am a woman who stands naked in the kitchen with cigarette in hand, nipples staring like prophetic eyes. A woman who kisses deeply with hyacinth lips, whose tongue tastes like lime.

He says he loves her. She will be his modest wife.
I purchase a kitchen appliance off the gift registry, because she is like toast.

<< Back to Issue 8, 2005