Poetry from Web Del Sol|
THREE POEMS
Kim Addonizio
FLOODHow images enter you, the shutter of the bodyclicking when you're not even looking: smooth chill of satin sheets, piano keys, a pastry's glazy crust floating up, suddenly, so the hairs along your arm lift in that current of memory, and your tongue tastes the sweet salt of a lover as he surges against you, plunges towards the place you can't dive into but which is deepening each moment you are alive, the black pupil widening, the man going down and in, the food and champagne and music and light, there is no bottom to this, silt and murk of losses that won't ever settle, and the huge unsleeping fish, voracious for pleasure, and the soundless fathoms where nothing yet exists, this minute, the next, the last breath let out and not returning, oh hold on to me as the waters rise, don't be afraid, we are going to join the others, we are going to remember and tell them everything. NEAR HERON LAKEDuring the night, horses passed closeto our parked van. Inside I woke cold under the sleeping bag, hearing their heavy sway, the gravel harsh under their hooves as they moved off down the bank to the river. You slept on, though maybe in your dream you felt them enter our life just long enough to cause that slight stirring, a small spasm in your limbs and then a sigh so quiet, so close to being nothing but the next breath, I could believe you never guessed how those huge animals broke out of the dark and came toward us. Or how afraid I was before I understood what they were--only horses, not anything that would hurt us. The next morning I watched you at the edge of the river washing your face, your bare chest beaded with bright water, and knew how much we needed this, the day ahead with its calm lake we would swim in, naked, able to touch again. You were so beautiful. And I thought the marriage might never end. PHYSICSIn the darkness of the booth, you have to findthe slot blindly and fumble the quarter in. The black shade goes up. Now there's a naked woman dancing before you and you're looking at her knees, then raising your eyes to the patch of wiry hair which she obligingly parts with two fingers while her other hand palms her body from breast to hip and it's you doing it, for a second you're touching her like that and when you lift your face to hers she's not gazing into space as you expected but looking back, right at you, with an expression that says I love you, I belong to you compl-- but then the barrier descends. You shove another quarter in but the thing has to close down before slowly widening again like a pupil adjusting to the absence of light and by the time it does you've lost her. She's moved on to the next low window holding someone's blurred face, and another woman is coming nearer under the stage lights and in the mirrors, looking so happy to see you trapped there like some poor fish in a plastic baggie that will finally be released into a small bowl with a ceramic castle and a few colored rocks, and you open your mouth just like a fish waiting for the flakes of food, understanding nothing of what causes them to rain down upon you. You can feel your hunger sharpening as she thrusts herself over and over into the air betweeen you. And now, unbelievably, there comes into your mind not the image of fucking her but an explanation you heard once of what vast distances exist between any two electrons. Suppose, the scientist said, the atom were the size of an orange; then imagine that orange as big as the earth. The electrons inside it would be only the size of cherries. Cherries, you think, and inserting your quarter you see one sitting on an ice floe in the Antarctic, a pinprick of blood, and another in a village in north Africa being rolled on the tongue of a dusty child while the dancer shakes her breasts at you, displaying nipples you know you'll never bite into in this lifetime; all you can do is hold tight to the last useless coins and repeat to yourself that they're solid, they're definitely solid, you can definitely feel them.
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