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V L Bennett Sep 2018
haunt empty mirrors
Pastel fingertips trace lipless smiles
eyeliners and mascaras circumscribe vacancies
These women do not suckle babies
They do not write books or poetry
They never read the editorial pages

Their husbands never get hard-ons
except when they *******
The women are glad
Their hair won't be rumpled
and the sheets won't be stained
They rise early in the morning
apply honeysuckle or springbreeze vaginal sprays
and polish their mirrors

When the windows of their houses melt
they turn up the air conditioning
When their men leave them
they shore up sagging *******
reclaim their virginity by its loss
practice pouts and pirouettes to perfection

The moon is their enemy
Another presidential election means
more wrinkles, more grey hairs
means nothing on TV
and they have to fold up
into themselves, a lonely
place where the mirror is the mind
V L Bennett Sep 2018
The Ice Man
has shattered eyes
shards of ice for his soul
his passions burn cold
no flame only pain

The Ice Man
cannot hold me
and will not let me hold him
V L Bennett Sep 2018
Cerise dyed her hair blonde
in a strip running from a point
midway abover her eyes,
straight back, medially bisecting her head.
Why not? Her witchcraft encounter group
encouraged her to go for it
and certain signs suspiciously converged
on that particular crystal moment
when she saw the Frost-N-Glow
on the supermarket shelf.
A self-correcting anomaly  caused a bag boy
to stumble in aisle two as he hurried to the break room.
Three doors down at the drug store
all the pills rattled in their bottles
although nobody noticed.

After it was done, she soon tired
of twisting her hair into new directions
and out of boredom she
picked up her phone and dialed her own number, expecting some satisfaction in knowing that her phone was busy.
To her surprise, the call
went through.
It rang twice andwas picked up
by a young-sounding man
who acted as if it were his own phone he'd answered.

Of course, The cosmic Ga-Ga had
it all planned out.
True, he was often less-tham-subtle
but a brick wall was frequently
sufficient in closing off paths of chance
and more sure than a feather duster. Very few feather dusters have stopped a man
from keeping an appointment that set
his path in life.
This was all The Ga-Ga's job.
Lost car keys, premonitionary dreams
some days he had to search long and hard
for just the right number of Sunday drivers
to let loose on Monday morning rush hour.
It was no easy job.

Cerise ended up at city hall, shouting about the monsters
in the walls. Her job was
not easy either.
V L Bennett Sep 2018
I have become lost in the sanctity
of fresh-baked bread
its scent evict my tenuous presence
the house is filled
with all the days of the past
and memories of all the strong fingers
that have worked the dough
my hair smells of yeast
and I have been delivered to my enemies
my hands are stained
with the stigmata of floury dough
caked
flaky
and a cheerful smudge
on the tip of my nose
marks me forever the subject of history
V L Bennett Sep 2018
Bottles of moonbeams
jars full of sunshine
stored away on a basement shelf
gathering dust and spiderwebs
carefully  collected then forgotten,
the distilled essence of days long passed
when love was a man
who promised summer breezes
and delivered winter winds.
V L Bennett Sep 2018
I am crystal:
the molten river flows
I cannot shatter
I will not bend
The gods have touched me
illuminated my countenance
with the fires of ten thousand furnaces
No waters will ever extinguish their flames

I am crystal:
at the center a translucent
nothingness
shatters the solid light
and shivers off
rainbows
V L Bennett Aug 2018
Do you laugh with amphibians,
share the secrets snails whisper
in the dark?
Are your fingers long and slender?

Come, don't wait.
Tomorrow may be too late.

Send me tiny spiders
crawling over my skin like eyes.
Send me dry-skinned snakes,
blind, I will make them see.
Send me your name,
send me your number.

Receive in reply
coyote murmurs,
the lingering smile of a turtle,
possum probabilities.
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