Madame Tulip

Slip a tequila to sweet Madame Tulip,
she’ll carry you far on her slippery lips.
She’ll take you to sea and tempt you with laughter;
your mind will be thrown into powder blue waters
scuffed pale with intentions and tactics and music
that batters your limbs and drums up your heartbeat.

Watch out for the spinnaker of sweet Madame Tulip,
it’ll billow and bind you in its red and white stripes.
You’ll be dazzled by laughter and thoughts of a future,
for sweet Madame Tulip is always convincing,
and salts up the seawind with alluring proposals.
But your friends will all turn to face other directions,
and no one will see you except Madame Tulip
who’ll simper and smile and lather on lippy.
You’ll start to believe that fate isn’t predestined
and the sea is a safe place.
You’ll cling to the notion that you’re in control.

Madame Tulip

But time is grotesque, and your spirit will falter
and your life will be spent fearing sharks in the waters.
When the sails are in tatters and the rudder has shattered
and you’re hunting the rollers for ways to get by.
You’ll find that that your poor heart is suckered with limpets,
clogged up with weed, too heavy to move.
But you’ll take one more look at sweet Madame Tulip,
still smiling and gleaming and sipping tequila through slippery lips,
and you fill every crevice with breath from the seawind,
you’ll dive overboard and wrestle the anchors,
scour the seabed for friendship and music
and one day, perhaps, if your breath lasts out,
you’ll end up holed in a watery cave,
and beneath the plastic and bottles and boulders,
you’ll find, rusted to pieces,
the plans you once made.