Dorian Gray fantasizes on Ted Bundy - Janette Schafer

After I bit into her with a ring mark of teeth,
I murdered once, found my lover tedious.
Apples grow brown when flesh is
peeled back. Drowned, her cheeks
were purpled plums, lips boysenberries.
I loved her again, death such
exquisite rouge.

I know why he did it, hunted the soft brown-
eyed fawns, bright vermilion streaks on
white sheet canvas, heads cracked like
tender melons, pulpy sweet fibers. I lacked
the energy to take another in that way
again. What appetites pulsed in his
club-shaped liver, his pretzel intestines.

We would have been brothers.
I would have kissed his waxen eyelids,
inhaled crackle-smoke from his
cooked torso, rubbed thumb-tips
across the irises as they turned
from cobalt to black.