"Even/in rope restraints, you were a scorcher, sweetie," or Now this is my kinda love poetry

From Matthea Harvey's new book, Modern Life:

Terror of the Future/5

Technically, "lonely me" was a tautology.
No one had ever stuffed carnations
in my tailpipe or planted a symbolic
lipsticked kiss on the swingdoor
to my kitchen. When you appeared,
I knew I was in a race against the sun
before they took you away on a stretcher.
I spruced up the counters with spit
and a sponge -- I wiped my slot machine
mouth clean. I shut the door, locked it.
I shouldn't have -- you were just here
to shop -- but I was way past worrying
about the seven deadly sins. In the show
about the sea lion and natural selection,
he got scratches from his lover, too. Even
in rope restraints, you were a scorcher, sweetie.
The radio said we needed to repeople.
I should have given you a running start;
I gave you roses. I persevered -- I professed
the principles of capillary attraction,
made you a plaster-of-Paris statue of a peacock,
wrote hundreds of haiku. The odds on you
loving me were a thousand to one, but there you were:
nibbling my toes in your nightshirt,
kissing me on the mouth in the mudroom.
My chest felt like it had undergone mitosis,
it ached so. I marveled at the maple syrup moon --
it had a luster unlike any linoleum.
We watched the lake breeze lift the leaves
though the keyhole. Inventory was low
and we were out of holy oil. Helicopters
landed on the hospital roof
every hour then every half hour.

I've been dawdling through my first read of this book, not quite ready for all of its surprises to be played out. It fills the bowl of my mouth with its very loveliness. And though Harvey has approached new apocalyptic subject matter here, she does this thing-- what I love her for-- maintaining a tone somewhere between wistful amusement and amused despair with regard to the human condition. It's the healthiest mindset I know. The poem above comes from a series of almost-abecedarians. Here is some more about that. And for more poems, there's always this.

Goddamnit! How I want to steal that first line up there. I just might do it, too. Oh, and that candle flame of "slot machine mouth," too. So good!

Also, the poem "Free Electricity" in this book is quite possibly one of the sexiest poems every written. In a coquettish, doesn't-quite-know-the-extent-of-its-own-sexiness (except that it does!) kind of way. I'd include it here, but I already feel funny about posting one published poem without explicit permission. Though, I know, other bloggers do it all the time.