The snowy boiling of Maltese froth\u2014
\nThe rippling rain, all night, whipping street dirt
\nInto sewers\u2014sets me imagining
\nWater-transparent clothes, you, naked.
\nHow I like to see you, so innocent,
\nIn bra and panties\u2014and then without em.
\nAnd next to me, so our sleep is sick
\nWith restlessness, for we joust, join, and jam.
\nHere the wind’s never as cool as water.
\nIndoors, our rooms feel stuffy as coffins\u2014
\nA cockroach-ridden, saturnine Limbo.
\nWe need gulp easy wine\u2014glossy bottles\u2014
\nUncoiled flutes of mead\u2014to refresh our mouths
\nAnd limbs, already liquid, as we melt.<\/p>\n
Your camera caught me penning fresh lines:
\nYou shot me\u2014in Paris\u2014in a bistro,
\nA carafe of red wine sunning my words
\nAs the flash sparked, catching on my dark ink.
\nWe’d breakfasted, and kissed, but were sedate\u2014
\nNot the fornicating stallion and mare\u2014
\nTwo extravagant horses\u2014we’d proven,
\nMaking our brute fucking our blunt breakfast.
\n(You were feeling your oats; mine, I sowed, wild.)
\nNext, we sat to fork quiche and quaff wine.
\nThen, you left me to my pages and ink,
\nBut, first, framed me looking civil.\u00a0 Voila!
\nSoon, we toured Musee de l’Erotisme,
\nAmused that feast and orgy can be penned.<\/p>\n
When we are near, what is dear, is touching.
\nPrecarious is Solitude, too close
\nTo Loneliness, when one can’t dare to touch,
\nFor no one is near, and no one is close.
\nNo clothing is carnal\u2014not wool, not silk\u2014
\nUnless it’s touching you, and you’re clutching
\nOnto me, and I’m touching carnal silk\u2014
\nCoveting your milk breasts, so worth clutching.
\nAlone, far, I’m a monument of tears,
\nFor you are distant, and your touch remote.
\nPotent magma, searing are my hot tears:\u2028My heart’s a volcanic island, remote.
\nA fire blazes in my ribcage, my heart,
\nTears can’t extinguish\u2014lest yours touch my heart.
\n<\/p>\n
I landed and you announced, “Munro’s won
\nThe Nobel,” and we kissed and clinked Champagne,
\nAnd I wanted more kisses, more Champagne,
\nAnd off we went, from airport to hotel
\nAs dusk darkened.\u00a0 Next, your striptease, wanton,
\nBrought to life The Lives of Girls and Women
\nIn paperback style: You sprawled “akimbo,”
\nAnd lisped, lusty, “I feel like an orgy.”
\nWe hadn’t yet taken stock of Stockholm
\nOr scanned the T.V. news for Munro’s face,
\nFor my face was surfacing at your thighs\u2014
\nOr yours was surfing upon mine\u2014with classic,
\nSwedish panache, mirroring Seventies’
\nPorn flicks, as we fucked, applauding Munro.<\/p>\n
Grandiose is Ecstasy, mirroring
\nThe Arrogance of hurricanes.\u00a0 Our voices
\nSurge in our merged Labour that’s Surgery.
\nI’m pitiless as a spear. You yield flesh.
\nWe transform even suburban boudoirs
\nInto an Olympic village, where Zest
\nBreeds slapstick gymnastics, and we become
\nAs malleable as roller coasters.
\nA “plain maid”?\u00a0 That’s not you.\u00a0 Thus, our bodies
\nDraft a torrid salmagundi, I mean,
\nA machina carnis, steaming Pleasure.
\nOur compliance with Lust isn’t grudging.
\nWe even tolerate the small rupture
\nThat’s Climax\u2014trumpets rearing like cobras…<\/p>\n
A thousand other poets wouldn\u2019t see\u2014
\nPerhaps\u2014your copper hair and sea-blue eyes.
\nI\u2019m different: \u201cOther than.\u201d Your rouge tresses
\nServe my poems\u2014as do your suitable eyes.<\/p>\n
I see you as sugar ministering
\nTo my pepper, sweetening white my sheets\u2014
\nAnd black-inked sheets. May\u2019s blossoms incarnate,
\nYou light my April muck\u2019s dark imagery.<\/p>\n
Was Beauty born when you were born? Or Love
\nOnly? Needed I years to learn to love.
\nYet, my eyes spied your beauty right away,<\/p>\n
Among rain-taste grapes and vintage lemons,
\nYour undammed perfume damning me to Lust\u2019s
\nSatanic realm, until you saw me plain.
\n<\/p>\n
I want a scalding day, when sheets are waves,
\nAnd your body is water and mine is boat,
\nAnd we shiver caught in a sirocco,
\nMutual, so we clutch at foam and froth.
\nYou live in Denmark, home of blizzard ice,
\nBut are volcano-hot, immense with fire.
\nAnd when I find you in bed, I find flesh
\nAs wet as wine, furious to be drunk.
\nYour lips, agile, don’t saunter: If sugar’s
\nCommunication, if I want sweetness
\nIncessant, gulping, like a sculptor hungry
\nFor a woman who is untamed marble\u2014
\nManna, measured freshness, untouched whiteness\u2014
\nA light burning nocturnally, I come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Maltese Memory The snowy boiling of Maltese froth\u2014 The rippling rain, all night, whipping street dirt Into sewers\u2014sets me imagining Water-transparent clothes, you, naked. How I like to see you, so innocent, In bra and panties\u2014and then without em. And next to me, so our sleep is sick With restlessness, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2845,"parent":229,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1406","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1406"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2685,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1406\/revisions\/2685"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/229"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}