sweet teeth

we chew the gummy cow 
until our teeth are caramel dark.
catch blue sharks in the alleyway. 
my father hides in his secret drawer 
full of sugar. licks his fingers. my love of sweetness 
is hereditary. i crave it like 
a night car craves a parking lot moon.
biting the shell, the drip of nectar
down the chin. 
i have watched my family
become dragons. a stash above the fridge.
a box buried in the yard. the closet
with the dead light. 
this week as we cleaned out my aunt's house
we found three bags of licorice &
a cookie tin full of nonpareils. in her forgetting
i imagine her searching the home
for those morsels. fingers in the afternoon light.
i like to believe there are spots we didn't find
& when the house is owned by someone
less hungry than us that they find them
& turn all werewolf from our desire.
i hope it is contagious. the year my lover 
met me he ate more sugar than ever.
one night we spent inside a peach ring.
i woke up to nothing but the color pink.
another lover years ago bought me 
a chocolate house. we sat inside until
our bodies melted the place & all we had
was a warped doorframe. i would not change
my hungers if i could. it is sometimes 
a gift to be so wanting. to have a mouth
prone to fountain. opened wide so that
the kids can toss in pennies 
with their wishes. i used to buy my father
a pound of twizzler for his birthday
& watch him eat the whole thing.
he would always feed me a rib or two.