Kai, Venus

Kai is smashed on two bottles lashed down 

with base to quash the doubts, wash them down, 

stashed safe within the living room and the latch of a sash 

window locking out the sound of rash traffic

and ashen memories dash dash dash dashed 

on dotted silent intervals coding names and dates.

Kai, Venus

A lesser known tourist attraction in Rome welcoming fresco enthusiasts, that’s how Olimpia had described the place to Kai. She’d also mentioned that you could get a secret tour of the upstairs floors if you managed to sweet talk the security guard on a quiet day. Kai’s visit had begun with a sugar low pre-lunch shuffle, sliding soles along the polished parquet floor. Ignoring the low rumble of his stomach, his eyes picked out lemon yellow flecks biting into the darkness of murky brown and deep blue. Sufficient zest for another lap of the rooms before he smiled at the guard and, with a casual step forward, asked him for an illicit tour of the villa’s top floor. A moment. Before he was taken up a narrow set of stairs behind a locked door, landing in a white washed shabby room, bare and unexpectedly utilitarian, overlooking the bored museum lawn and it’s neat potted lemon guards. A whisper pulled him along into another room, much like the one before, bare and unexpectedly utilitarian, and by the third he knew the fourth and the fifth would be equally nondescript. His attention shifted to his guide, whose steady pace was halted by an abrupt pivot so that he now faced Kai and shielded behind him an ornate set of double wooden doors. Theatrically the guard rested the tip of his index finger on his cheek and said, kiss? No, he said, kiss. Kai lightly pecked him on the cheek and felt the security guard grab his wrist as he leaned in.