Eyes

When his eyes lift and clasp to mine, 

when I see the ice melt and glow inside 

the candle, 

when I feel my own curved membranes 

swell and rise and fall 

and try to hide, 

when the rocky beach of skin around 

his globes folds, 

when I start to sink into the dunes, 

when they release their drug 

into my body and my body comes apart, 

a blossom whose petals shimmy off 

in a light breeze, layer after layer, 

when my petals warm the ground 

like a carpet--

that's when I can almost be the thing 

I most want to be--

one soft petal in a fragrant bud,  

a bee's lips sipping deep in my center, 

my nectar flowing, both bee and I dying, 

dying of this pleasure. 

On the road

And then the car stops beside the freeway, 

alongside a meadow of red blinding tulips, and we 

step out and wave goodbye to our new friends, 

and then hold out our pretty young thumbs, the nails 

like clear unpolished stones pointing to the road ahead, 

when another car pulls to the side and we run heavily 

with our mounts to meet it, smiling at the drivers, our new friends, 

with grateful exuberance. 

Because everything stirs, piques, us, 

and so deeply. Everywhere we point and gasp.

So this is England! 

So this is Scotland!

So this is Italy!

We lick the rain drops from our noses, noting 

a sweet foreign taste, a marvelous scent.

So this is Greek rain!

So this is Swiss snow, so light, so white! 

So this is Turkish milk, German bread, 

French cows, Dutch wasps. 

We bow at all the sacred places, 

remove our caps, our shoes, touch the crosses 

and swords.

So these are their skulls!

We walk the catacombs, gaze long into their memory, 

and at the graves, sometimes, we have no words, but always, 

always we are certain untold numbers of translucent 

beings walk with us, a delegation sent, the past looking at us, 

judging us. We welcome it.

We long for its approval.  

Would I be a better woman?

People wake from their trances when

my father passes by

in uniform as if on parade

while I skip behind trying not to step 

on his very shiny shoes 

that blast up the street 

like torpedoes.

Then comes that moment--
I can touch its contours, 

I can call it forth any time--

when I reach for the soldier's hand--

when I feel mine fit snug as a shrimp 
inside its shell--

that’s how I want it to be. 

I want him to claim me as I claim him.

I wonder now, would I be a better woman 

had he not yanked his hand free, 

had he not said, I don't have time to be silly,

had he not meant, not now, not ever?