The dragon at my back
remedies flame
with a wet sneeze
turning my stomach
at the sweat-salted lips
I was savoring;
his aplogy reeking
of oil and wine,
his touch bony,
I murmur 'nothing'
and hurry on.
~2~
Water edges slyly
across the road,
with a fantasy
of beating schedules,
my feet root
in the sludge;
pebbles are a
thousand sharp teeth
lining the womb -
a stubborness births
deep
to wait
and defy
that there is disconnection;
behind me male voices:
-- hey, look at that crazy chick
-- she has a nice ass;
rescue is long gone.
Inundated
by the semen
of the coastal province:
salty fish soup,
red geraniums
glaring belligerently
housewives to bare stone,
wind irritates every
sense of my being,
perfumed with sea,
and an appealing bitterness
of storms that roll
in every evening,
I have never
hated
but this waiting;
imagining even
the sharp-faced
garcon
with an old woman's
puckered lips
could be sexy
~Prolouge~
You are every man
that I have desired
the raw knee,
feral bite,
fine hands
that could span
a field of flesh;
wind is the woman
in shadow,
lust cache,
a crushing force
of vague touch;
the stone unyielding
in its history
unquenched;
all that I am
is kissing you
in comfortable suffocation.
(c) Susan Paige Shoemaker 1996