I was listening to roller skating tunes.
Yes, I am shallow, sir.
And though thou may say villainess or mistress,
I am content to be who I am.
One noon, we were over dull
and our hearts we serviced
like two thieves there
in the kissing place
where breaths are both as one
and the first of many kisses doubles.
He made vows in mine ear.
He has such hands and lips
and his fortunate nature fed mine eyes
oh, nothing was scarce.
Our horns locked together
with the intensest chutzpah
and we well-made our match.
We sparked feelings we all ascribe to heaven.
I would not tell you
I can serve a man
that by slow designs
men can melt.
He swore oaths
and dropped
half won.
Later he paid
the sweetest
after-debts
—he did owe it.
.
.
songs for this:
Find Me the Pulse of the Universe by Laetitia Sadier
Stormy (Bossa Mix) by S-Tone Inc

The heart shuts,
The sea slides back,
The mirrors are sheeted.
-Sylvia Plath, "Contusion"


The job hunt is not going well:
wrong man in wrong city, no timing,
no luck - now I rise with worry

stuck inside my ribs, crouching
fat and cold where the heart was,
new clock flooding me with off-beats

so that I stumble in wrong-footed falls.
I'm fed by only sleep and steady rain:
all news, it turns out, is bad news.

Perhaps tomorrow the sun
will quit and I can take that job,
pacing to and fro, annihilating clouds,

handing things off to the night shift...
But no: I'll wake to indomitable silence,
a dread of mailmen, and ever-hungry cats.

In Reply to Lori Jones McCaffery

"Poetry Challenge 1: One sentence, 17 syllables"

I'm doing a variation and writing a poem consisting of only 17 syllable lines:

Born with everything possible; how disappointing it came to this,

watching dull rain erode the snow from chilled off-white to curb-frozen ash,

drinking old Ardmore and lamenting an ironic philosophy,

Evan's law - as disposable income rises, so do all the bills.


"Poetry Challenge 2: 10 Words - Time, Place, Emotion"

I was thirty-nine in Washington with a Turkish girl:

I chased my feelings for two years until I found

her in bed with someone else. So, to hell with her:

I'd rather get drunk and watch the snow melt.

I saw two snow eagles
and a naked girl
The one was the other
and the girl was none
-Federico Garcia Lorca, "Ode to the Dark Doves"


We drove all night to Long Island
to the Islip shoreline wedding
as knees of snow bent over us.

We knew it was our last stand,
all the endless arguments were finished
& all we had left was black market ***.

With this classmate's marriage
our bond was in its last hours.
Frost-fleece freckled the bay face,

crested skin chopped and skimmed,
as her licentious hand drifted quietly
across the dark car division to my thigh -

she loved when I was pinned like this,
waiting for her next move; soon enough
she persuaded even the snow to pause.

At the hotel the room heat was off,
so we turned it on and looked out
on still, bleach-banked hill backs

& things between us were hushed
until she undid her chilled hair
it dropped slowly to shoulder

& she said don't move, don't move at all;
I could see my breath hanging in air,
as I was undressed and given to the cold.

Thoughts can be thin fractures in the order of things.
Sometimes my dorm room seems a sterile sarcophagus, like an accusation, or an interrogation of my romantic choices, with nothing warm or inviting there. Sometimes I’ve just got to get out.

Leong and I decided to go to ‘Toads Place’—a bar right across
the street from campus. Still, it was a 10 minute walk from our
residence.

This night seemed different, not the usual, winter, claustrophobic gray. No, the burning heavens were a canopy of spirals and light events—a show put on by an insecure deity needing to overawe.

It was Charles and Chinthia’s anniversary, so Leong and I went alone. The place was busy, and unsurprisingly, we met up with a few friends, including this guy I’ve been calling soccer-boy. His name is Troy. As the night went on, and the martinis flowed, we kind of hit it off.

I have a boyfriend. He’s far away. Sometimes, his memory’s like a warm beacon broadcasting from that far away. Other times, our connection seems to bleed across that distance, and his questions and concerns seem foreign.

At the end of the night, no, well ok, the start of the morning, a group of us began strolling back to our dorm. It’s safe to say that none of us were feeling any pain. At one point Leong paused to chat with a friend and Troy and I carried on alone.

After a certain amount of Facetiming with the boyfriend, the texture of face-to-face is immediate and mesmerizing. Troy’s eyes are the blue of gas flame and there are a thousand flickery reflections dancing there. When I looked in them, I felt like an astronaut heading out for oblivion

At one point, I realized that we’d left Leong behind and we paused under a streetlamp. After a moment, I leaned back on the pole—it was steadying—and Troy took the opportunity to move in close. Have you ever felt a molasses-feeling of lust that made your legs feel ropey?

I half-began to hum a nonsense song as a distraction from the closeness of him and to regain some mental, objective distance. Then he moved very, very close and I could feel my resolve wavering, like a cardboard construct.

He leaned in and kissed me, quickly and so softly that it was almost a whisper. Then the edge of his fingers brushed against me and faded away. When he really committed to touching me, it was with a coiled restraint, backed by the urgency of a ticking bomb.

He nuzzled my neck as hands moved slowly, with the overflourish of an amateur magician—there was no disguise in it—but there was a kind of magic. The breeze had taken to moaning, or was that me?
It didn’t encompass the full range of my thoughts, but it was a strong, representative sample.

However, something dark was rippling beneath the pleasure, like a shark beneath a sea’s reflective aqua surface—it was common sense, and restraint. At first it felt like I was fighting something that wouldn’t properly show itself. I mean, the pleasures were real, but there was an unreal mechanical overlay to them.

We humans are such blunt instruments. Nature’s given us buttons that can be pushed for its own purposes.

With a quick dart, like a bluebird from a bush, I gained the upper hand on my foggy, lecherous emotions.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I said, gently pushing him away, “I’m going to have to opt out.” I offered a weak smile.
He was a gentleman, he backed away with a shrug. “Another time,” He said, with a wide devouring smile.
“I have a boyfriend,” I said, kind of late—like it was a matter-of-fact that shouldn’t need repeating.

That’s when Leong arrived, she gave Troy a look like a feral cat. She can have cold, flat, judgmental eyes. For me, she had a frown that I could feel—it was that powerful. She likes Peter—I’d get a talking-to.
“G-night, Troy” she said, her disregard for him made him seem like an outline, not a real person.

As we turned to go on to the dorm, I saw that we’d been under one of those stations they have on campus where you can summon help, and there was a little obsidian surveillance camera.

I wondered how many other 2am noir-romance scenes were playing out on the darkened campus.
.
.
Songs for this:
Beautiful Trash by Lanu & Meg Washington
Princess Crocodile by Gry with FM Einheit and His Orchestra
.
.
our cast: A reader once asked, “Who are these people?” (a solid question)
Leong, (roommate) 21, a ‘molecular, cellular, and developmental biology major,’ is from Macau, China - the Las Vegas of Asia - and she’s a proud communist (don’t knock it til you’ve tried it). Growing up, I lived in Shenzhen China (about 30 miles from Macau) we both speak Cantonese (maybe why we were paired?) and we're able to talk a lot of secret trash together.
Troy, (soccer boy) He’s 6 feet tall and fit. His hair's a rich, thick, mahogany "collegiate mop" (Think Hough Grant) and there's an easy, uncomplicated strength about him—something polished and fresh, he's like a shiny new phone. When he crosses a room, he seems to move in slo-mo. He's a environmental studies major - whatever that is.
Charles, a 54-year-old 6'4" retired NYC cop, has been my escort, driver, security and surrogate parent since I was 9 years old. His wife Cynthia is also an ex-cop and the VP of a cyber-security company. My Grandmère hired Charles for me when a classmate was murdered in Year 7 (6th grade).
Your author, a simple country girl from Athens Georgia, is also a molecular biophysics and biochemistry major (pre-med).