How early
their hot skins slide
from the slippery flesh!
Fish-like slices
squirm and sink
into the syrup pond.
Yellow-orange sheen
swells
to naked red.
Smooth round cheeks
glow
as the curve
of a lowering sun.
Perfume rises.
Now caught
beneath firm lids
they peer through glass
like laboratory specimens
in a second life,
or imprsioned sea creatures
languidly floating,
fated to be stroed
on some darkened shelf.