Hookah

Pursed between flushed lips
like a bulb in its socket
she lengthens her ribs to a triangle.
Its smell climbs
but doesn’t knuckle the nose
until the final ounce
escapes lungs and mouth
without need of a doorknob.
Passed to the chimney
whose lips last left moist residue.

She lifts a shoulder.
Bends a knee.
Undulates through to the hill-like hip.
Catching the highway to her ear,
a giggle produces a sinuous partner.
Then two
(knot-hair).
They lift choreographed ostrich legs.
Then three
(mole-cheek).
They descend to the floor like rodeo ropes,
paunches sucked in.

But the onrush breaks
for the smell alerts, addictive.
Pursed again, the mature call it mango
but memory rouses childhood days of cherry.