ERIN ELIZABETH

Simply a Poem on Wanting

Sun is a mole, abnormal speck of sky 
plastered onto the decrescendo of dusk. 
I am sitting across the Antarctica of his grey
'94 wagon, and it is here I grapple for you, 
for your almost reachable limbs spread 
vulnerable that late May evening, 
your body soured by her eyes -- landmines. 

Now the scenery is static, the beauty of freedom,
green and tedious. Promised Delaware coast, 
steady rise of virgin peaks, a day tossed over his head
into the cool chlorine: all like newspaper. 

There is just you and my ancient musings -- 
almost asking what all your music meant 
before Orlando, how she could hold your alphabet 
in such tight and diligent fists.  How I was supposed to 
find your feet when the weight of my existence collapsed, 
and I became a featherless child in a world of cut-outs.

There is just me in a fitful quagmire, without verse or veins 
to destroy. Just me in a bright pink reality, the tar 
of adolescence mopped, resealed. Ziplocked and driven 
into boxes and bags. Me, wanting to kill the sticky mascara 
puddles, the creek of eyeliner, the girl I could not be. 

There is just him sitting like a monument, 
his eyes not heeding the fallout, the mushroom 
movement of me, trying to push out of this sepulcher 
of fidelity.  Just me watching the sun spit 
itself across the bellicose skyline,
pressing my fingers into the side-view mirror, wanting
a man so distant he's close, and feeding on the distance
so close it is licking the stone of my inner thigh
wishing to be you.




  

copyright 2003 ERIN ELIZABETH

MEAGAN CASS

Hand in Hand

It's a November night and the wind
sends dry, fallen leaves flying around us 
as we walk down Market Street.  

We are talking about music and sucking on peppermints
from the quiet Italian restaurant where we just shared
grilled salmon and penne with a creamy vodka sauce.
It has been a good night.  

On other nights you've come to me with 
your eyes wet and your composure in a heap 
on the floor with the day's clothes
and said "I love you."  

You've opened up the cages inside you and let me touch
the things that bite and snarl.    

You caught me hurling my pebbles into a crowd, 
at my mother's bedroom door,
into myself.
And still, you kissed each of my burning fingers.  

But my mother and father 
are in the backyard raking dead leaves in the cold.  

And it says, "Love" on those new thirty-two cent postage stamps.  
Soon orange juice cartons and boxes of kitty litter 
will wear our sacred understanding.  

We walk hand in hand.  
Part of me smiles and part of me insists upon wondering;
Who is holding tighter? Am I doing all the holding?
Is your palm sweaty, and do you secretly
want to pull away
and wave to someone in the distance? 

copyright MEAGAN CASS