He was really her favorite
student, dark and just
back from the army with
hot olive eyes, telling her of
bars and the first
time he got a piece of
ass in Greece or was it
Italy and drunk on some strange
wine and she thought
in spite of his dangling
pronoun (being twenty four and
never screwed but in her
soft nougat thighs) that he
would be a
lovely experience.
So she shaved her legs up high
and when he came
talking of foot notes she
locked him tight in her
snug black file cabinet where
she fed him twice a day and
hardly anyone noticed
how they lived among bluebooks
in the windowless office
rarely coming up for sun or the
change in his pronoun. Or the
rusty creaking chair
or that many years later
they were still going to town in
novels she never had time to finish
she keeps him on
ice, like an
illegal pistol
in a safe
deposit box,
to finger and
cock and then
wrap back
in soft flannel.
He's there
for her, ready
for her fingers.
She moves closer,
strokes his pearl
handle, Bonnies
up to his
Clyde, tongues
his cross hairs.
he's cool, he
s hard, ready
for her to,
with just the
touch of her
skin, explode,
leave only a
white puff, the
scent of him
on her skin
She had been really
looking for some
plumber—being 23 and
only tapped about
the edges and when she
saw his pink tipped
plunger thickly flaring
from a swollen bag she felt
that he could probably
please her. So, when he
came to diddle in her
toilet she locked
him snug in her dark
spongy hamper
gobbled down the rusty
key then raised her
lid to sow him
what she had and what
she wanted And he climbed
inside her
medicine cabinet, pushed
aside her toothpaste
knees, her fluffy
bathmat, ripping tiles
from all her corners while
he probed her bowls
strange gulping
noises till water screamed
out of their drains. And
he stayed inside her
rubbery places and
he came and plunge and
came and hardly anyone
noticed how
they lived among sweet
towels and talcum never
taking time to
shave, how his tools were
always reading, how her
ducts had softly
changed. Or heard sounds of
joy and dampness
spilling wild from the
hot misty room
Lyn Lifshin has published more than 120 books of poetry and edited four anthologies of women's writing. Her poems have appeared in most literary and poetry magazines and she is the subject of an award winning documentary film, Lyn Lifshin: Not Made of Glass, available from Women Make Movies. Her most recent books include Barbaro: Beyond Brokenness from Texas Review Press; Persephone from Red Hen; New World Press published Desire and just published All the Poets (Mostly) Who Have Touched Me, Living and Dead; and All True, Especially the Lies and Tsunami as History from PoetryRepairs.com. New York Quarterly books will publish A Girl Goes into the Woods in 2012. Two new books appeared in July 2012: For the Roses: poems for Joni Mitchell from March Street Press and Knife Edge & Absinthe, the tango poems from Night Ballet Press. Her web site is www.LynLifshin.com.
del.icio.us
