Your Latin professor, who is seven months pregnant, Was extremely flushed and you felt obligated To walk her to her car.
You are still very much interested in my story— You talked to someone the other day For twenty minutes about it.
You do hope this isn’t the direction your life is taking, So formal, arranging times.
You will be free all day Next Wednesday not having to work And your afternoon class being cancelled.
But if I will suggest a time next week You are sure you will be able to drop by, you Probably can’t stay long but Wednesday right after Latin class looks the best to you right now so If that would work for me, let you know.
You are sorry that your life is not convenient For me, it is not too convenient for you either: Life is not easy in the hands of an irrational god.
The stairs angled up the outside Of the building like those I climbed To the first apartment I lived in, After I got married the first time. He was an anthropology major, His girlfriend archaeology. She wanted him to move in there with her, But it’s easy to see why he Balked; at home he lived all the suburban Comforts: carpet, quiet plumbing, spacious, Fresh rooms his mommy kept tidy, plus his daddy’s Computer to write term papers on. A second story apartment in Old Town sucks: Noisy neighbors, roaches (I saw a big one Race down the ragged arm Of the sofa and zoom Into a crack in the baseboard), Little closet space, no garage; Convenient walking distance to campus Hoists the rent to scandalous. But while his girlfriend spent six weeks digging in Africa, We put it to use a couple of July afternoons. His fresh youth promised a good romp As he bulged a yeasty readiness—but alas! He lacked skill with his master tool, But still his succulent lips and skillful tongue Put a bounce in the balls of my feet As they mounted those stairs two at a time.
“My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun” —Shakespeare Sonnet #130
If he thinks my eyes are not like the sun, He must think someone else’s are, And her lips are red as coral, I suspect. And on her head grows flaxen silk Not like the dark wires that stick out of mine. He probably hears tunes in her voice, Though he says he loves to hear me talk. She, no doubt, exhales expensive perfumes, When he gets his nose next to her mouth. He must think she glides along the earth like Athena, But I just plod the ground in my flat shoes. If his love for me is so goddam rare, Why do I come out sounding like Just another one of his shittin’ sonnets?
Idioms of myriad worlds spiral down the begging path. The grain feathers tangle in the sandbar on the rim, Ending in the dwelling of manifest wrath With stupor offering its clank to the whim.
No one dreamed the others into swerving. Few sacrificed fathers and mothers for priding. Several rounded the edges on the curving. Many chafed at the marble pine for hiding.
The scooped talons of white crowing Dip under the sea-broad sky. Fleet winged bandies blowing Stretch and dither on the fly.
No tongue shatters so many brains as munificence. No tooth clatters the rain so well as malfeasance.
I Your six two, one eighty eases these bleary eyes that brighten for pretty things, and the screen adores every inch and pound. You throb this old girl’s eyeballs now that David Hasselhoff’s Baywatch is rendering up reruns of reruns; your Renegade dismisses my school daze. A martial artist, kicking in heads, then beautifully escaping the corrupt cops that would corrupt your loveliness in a gray cell, and leave your fresh flesh rotting on death row, victim of their frame-up.
I tingle like a school girl watching your long legs and bulbed muscles. Your divine face proves God. Angels sigh when you speak. From hair to boots you remind me that there is so much more to pleasure than is dreamed of by nervous network executives. I’ll write you into the script of my poems, because your form is blazing across the marquee of my mind.
II In my temple of dreams you carry candles & light up Indiana & the church swells with voices of answered prayers. Although I’ve never motorcycled, I’ve a mind to hog now that I’ve caught your long hair stroking your shoulders & that shadow of Latin manhood stressing your sleek jaw. I fancy I’ll ride with you awhile. My body tight against yours as you whisk us off to—oh, maybe San Diego or Mexico.
III Your divine face proves God, and angels sigh when you speak. The cleverest magician could not conjure up the magic your image impresses on my soul. I’ve known beauty in the human form before, or at least I thought I had: the gods of Greece flicker in the light of your Latin flame.
But you were not born with the silver spoon of beauty in your mouth: you’ve pumped iron and jogged, and grown lean on dinner salads. your appearance in Grease affirms your youthful form clothed itself in baby fat; that mute, blond, Nordic jock you portrayed did not hint at the solid rock of muscle you stock, and long, slim lines you draw now.
Dear Head, I am writing this letter to apologize for all the agony I have put you through because of my cravings. Thank you for supplying the long slender objects that have thrust themselves into me from time to time— the fingers, the tongues, the carrots that have made my pleasure spot throb. I know those acts must have embarrassed you, having to expose your breasts and belly and buttocks to get the flesh tools to work. Most of the owners of the flesh tools were gross; I always liked the tongues and fingers better than the pricks, but I understand now where you were coming from, I’m sorry if I had anything to do with making you think I needed all that goo sprayed into me, it was always just the throb I wanted, not the job, especially not the clean up afterward. Again, I apologize, and promise to remain as humbly quiet as I can from now on. (Oh, yeah, FYI—despite male ego and female confusion on the subject, all of us girls are really lesbians.)
Yours in peace, DU
Dear Heart, I am writing this to apologize for all the aching I have caused you. I know you felt left out every time one of those prong-owners went straight for me. I apologize for hiding here under this bush, ambushing the meat, I know I have been a hungry bitch, and I have stolen from you more than I could ever return. You have the last laugh, your blood is still running and mine is dry. I promise I will not prompt you again, I hope you have a serene life,
I am finally learning to live in tranquility. No more vaginitis and no more yeast infections, a disease-free environment encourages peace within and without.
Yours for love, DU
A slightly different version of this original poem appears in my collection titled “Turtle Woman & Other Poems” under the title “Letters from V”
Interviewer: What has become of your face? Mirror: It is like the moon; it has 28 phases.
Interviewer: When did those eyes become blanks? Mirror: Oh, when is not important. The question is, are they blank enough.
Interviewer: Where does that sallow skin come from? Mirror: From deep inside where sallow is mixed with saffron and clumps of leaves are torn from shadow boxes with fennel pollen.
Interviewer: Why fennel pollen? Mirror: Why fennel pollen, indeed! Better than mace and thyme, more elaborate than a whistle, sweet, spice, electric . . .
Interviewer: Why does your mouth obey those loose-hinged jaws? Mirror: It was never one to disobey. In the radical morning, scruffs of necks seek to burn, and limber goths slink back to the swamp.
Interviewer: How will your heart explain to your brain that it has shattered itself again over the sharp rocks of indulgence? Mirror: Now, I am a small pool of crystal water that rushed down from the Himalayas to gather fools who have no right to breathe the temperate air of Maya, yet . . . they travel on.
