pushing between
1.
his post on the border is over
still he sees
collapsed pictures of mesquites in wet light
listening to heartbeats brand commercials
motors running laundry machines working
the gods were dead when i arrived,
but the corporations had already taken over.
yet he is scheduled to live
blown up by red geraniums
thrown on a desolate landscape
he is scheduled to become
the weather
where certain fields escape
where sugarpods of mesquites
fill light with women’s laundered lingerie
smelling of sex and chemicals
he sees, he says
which gods are dead
as their wet pictures
run rainstatic through the wringer washer
maytag edition in mesquite, TX
a boy’s hand
flattened
coming out the other side like sky
“i see you putting on your clothes
and want to strip it all away.”
2.
we are watching
certain fields escape
“character teaches” (under i you)
as wrenches or pulleys
minutes through proper time
instructions in seven languages (under i you)
ungaretti says, and already I am desert.
lost inside this curving sadness.
but night disperses distances.
to believe the lines
about infinity
i must undo myself (under i you)
*
i am watching
you undo
your jacket, uncertain
in a certain field
where a girl insists
Take me to the woodshed boy. (under him her)
or is that
Take me to the woodshed. Boy. (under her him)
We can never overcome the
inflections of seven languages
even when we abide by
the instruction manual
which declares:
find new ways to move beneath your clothes (under us them)(sashaying)
this button undone
another falling away
he gives up hope of
surviving her
the lines of arms
curving distances
desire is not a season. which wrist is leading?
3.
“morning glories for the map-maker who visits my thighs”
map-maker
make me into a geographical certainty.
a location to visit
in terrible weather. ice-light. sea spit and drizzle.
i have located you in desire
thrown aside the quadrant
and started feeling with fingers.
you sketch my skin
with seaports and parishes
not to eliminate erosion
but to complicate place
lips salt-tipped, lit by spumante,
sea-spume. your hand
under my voice
so many ways to kiss a boy who’s drowning
so many ways to
4.
she listens to wind over
clear water
she listens to deer
gather in the blue
electricity of the drying laundry
the cold
wind makes her
shiver
to undo herself
she must have warmth
the steady gaze
of an eye (the ocular erotic in what distant deeps or skies)
5.
i crawled into your face
and slept there
sphinx-eyed and tired of the ongoing wars
and you
played with porcelain angels
on a mantle
pretending not to see
i’ll have another brandy, please.
here is my eye
a finger a nail
they protect me
from desire
but fail so often
that i am giving them
to you
the maker laughs to herself
as she pours another drink
6.
a grappa-wide smile
an ear paused in the salted air of the Adriatic
you whisper
maestral, my arm is on fire
etymology is a sexy way
to get a girl to lift her skirt
or peel an orange in one spiraled
piece with fever-white teeth
beneath insinuations of a solar system
you taste of limeade as you dream of green hospital gowns
to undo her
buttons you must rewind
your life,
you must become yourself
in front of yourself.
simone muench was raised in Benson, Louisiana and
Combs, Arkansas. Her most recent book Lampblack & Ash received the
Kathryn A. Morton Prize for Poetry (Sarabande Books, 2005). Orange
Girl, a chapbook, is forthcoming in July 07 from Dancing Girl Press.
She has poems appearing in Iowa Review, American Poet, Caffeine
Destiny, Poetry, Locuspoint and Three Candles. She received her Ph.D
from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and is director of the
Writing Program at Lewis University. Currently, she serves on the
advisory board for Switchback Books, and is a contributing editor to Sharkforum where she presents a
“poem of the week” series. She is also an avid horror film fan.
william allegrezza is the editor of
Moria and editor-in-chief of Cracked Slab Books. His poetry,
articles, translations, and reviews have been published in many
countries, including Australia, the Czech Republic, Holland, and the
United States. He has had work appear in Milk, Word for Word,
Aught, Sidereality, The Drunken Boat, and many others. His books
and chapbooks include Lingo (subontic), temporal nomads (xPressed), The
Vicious Bunny Translations (Lulu), Covering Over (Moria), and Ladders
in July(BlazeVox).
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