Love like riding bikes

Love, like riding bikes,
takes a lot of confidence,
a little balance.

You left your lipstick on my yellow mug.

You left your lipstick on my yellow mug.
Even after you had washed it and dried it, there it was ---
that kiss you missed
an accidental rosiness on it's rim, like when
you burst out laughing at what I had said
flashing your bright red teeth at me, red
with the soft hearts of the berries
that broke our fast.

Instructions

Do not keep
in a heated cabinet
over a week.

polish

the naming
of nail
polishes
appeals to
the sterile:
for who
but women deprived
would delight
in naming
each minute
shade
Blushing Beryl
Dewy Nude or
Ruddy Confusion
as they have
children in
their imagination

there are
the puns
unforgivable, unavoidable
in any venture
Hard as Nailfiles or
Chartruse with Envy, colors
unwearable except
as mis-
adventure
of being young
drumming them
against resumes
rendered null
by their neon
oranges and chip-
ping greens

there are
names that
taken literally
disturb:
Flaming Vixen?
put her out! names
like Angry Seduction
or Overripe Plum
hint at a series
of glum teachers
of shortest stories
offering
instruction,
hoping
for fame.

Malapropism

Name us
a famous poet --- Go on. Do it.
e.e. cummings doesn't count.
Leave Eliot out of it --- a living one
or it's like they said:
call no man famous
until he's dead.