"Sticky Fingers" by Christina

Sticky Fingers

Wallowing

beatifically

in a moment full

of uncertainty

&

questioning

Like a perfect bite

salty, sweet,

balanced in pleasure

&

novelty

A new taste

broadening my pallet

finding new grottos

of flavor

So is this moment

this morsel

That could

make you instantly sad,

such a poignant moment,

so fleeting

It could

make you stop,

close your eyes,

recreate from memory

Each mundane detail

that somehow

comes together

to be sublime

When you look away

into the sun

you purse your lips

into a controlled smile

caverns surround your smile

I want to explore them

gently

with the tip of my tongue

Explore the salt,

the margarita,

the ocean breeze,

beads of your scent

Each its own

Each part of the

divine morsel

Your voice

it’s timber,

it’s deep leathery tone

I can sink into it.

The air that escapes

on each S

draws me in

Your round supple

Bum….

I digress

In this exercise

of imprinting

Tracing your soft skin

with tips of tongues

and fingers

Digging deep into

your silky main

Tasting every inch of you

like licking the last

dregs of flavor

Licking fingers

with golden juice

dropping decorum

forgetting proper

As you go,

become a ghost,

rambling around,

in my mind

I can return

here

&

remember,

feel

its warmth

spill into

my center

Leaving it there

allowing it to be

embracing the ephemeral

Allowing myself

to savor

&

decipher each morsel,

these crumbs

of you.

REVIEW

Christina’s Sticky Fingers aims to be a sensual meditation on longing, memory, and embodiment—rich with scent, texture, and emotional imprint. There’s a clear desire here to evoke something intimate and immersive, and in places, the poem succeeds in conjuring a lingering emotional atmosphere.

But, for me, the poem struggles to find its tonal footing. The title, Sticky Fingers, suggests something cheeky or playful—maybe even mischievous. What follows, however, is more languid, dreamlike, and emotionally serious. That tonal mismatch left me slightly unsure of how to enter the poem: is this a seduction, a lament, a memory, a fantasy? It gestures toward all of these, but doesn't fully commit to any one.

Word choices and imagery occasionally distract more than they serve. Phrases like “grottos of flavor” aim for lush sensuality but landed awkwardly with me, almost (sadly) comically. The phrase didn’t just feel anatomically odd—it disrupted the emotional texture that the poem is otherwise trying to build. Similarly, “golden juice” gave me an involuntary recoil. It took me out of the poem entirely. And then there’s “your round supple / Bum…”—which arrives abruptly, tonally out of sync with the surrounding lines, and for me was oddly in contrast to the poem’s more elegant aims.

There are also some mechanical slips: “main” appears where “mane” was almost certainly meant, and “pallet” should be “palette.” These may seem minor, but in a poem that trades on sensual precision, they matter. The early use of “beatifically” is technically correct but for me was stylistically jarring—it dropped me into a ecclesiastical register at odds with the sensuality that follows.

Perhaps most disruptive, though, is the subtle but unresolved temporal confusion in the middle of the piece. The speaker says “this moment lingers”—suggesting the memory is alive and present—only to shift abruptly into the retrospective. The result is a kind of narrative fog: are we in the moment, or are we remembering the fact that we once in the moment? The poem seems unsure, and that uncertainty weakens the emotional clarity of what should be its strongest passage.

That said, there’s real promise in the material. A memory of intimacy, when handled with restraint and precision, can deliver emotional weight without having to reach for baroque phrasing. For example, an (unasked-for) revised version of the “morsel” section, retitled Silence, for me finds that balance between sensuality and emotional resonance—without the tonal slippage:

Silence

Even now,

the memory lingers—

a morsel, so fleeting

it makes me stop,

close my eyes,

try to taste it again.

Each mundane detail,

suddenly divine:

the breath before a kiss,

the sun on your fingernails,

the way silence

didn’t feel empty.

For me, this version pulls back just enough to let the reader enter. It trusts subtlety. It builds atmosphere without tipping into excess. And crucially, it picks a narrative tense—and stays there.

Christina, I do see your poem as working to do something deeply worthwhile: explore the afterglow of intimacy and the quiet grief of ephemerality. If future drafts are willing to risk a little less lushness and a little more truth, Sticky Fingers could evolve into something that really lingers—long after the last line.