freedom

my cat sits
on the sill
licking at the cold glass
and i
wonder does she
lick to feel the smoothness
of the glass against her
rough tongue or
to taste the impossiblity
of freedom.

(first published in APJ, 1999 )



jeans


you take my
small
hips, in your
big hands, too
big hands and

pull me on
to
you, fit me

to you,on
you, over
you like putting
on

socks, or a pair
of
jeans, with just as much
thought you

wear me, like
you bought
me
at
k mart.


been


i was a granddaughter
until eight years ago. i am
a daughter for maybe
a year or two more
perhaps three.

i have been a mother
these thirty years past, a grandmother
possibly, never.

i was a good wife, until
i realized that wife meant
less than i could be.

i was, i've been, i
am, everything
but me.




my hands

oh lord, are turning into
my grandma's hands,
not my mother's, oh no.
her's were too harsh, too quick with
angry movement. no.
my hands are my grandma's,
endless twistings
in silent rosary pleadings.
i pray, without the beads
using grandma's hands.



180 lbs.


ribs and hipbones, too white skin
nipples turned upward
from flat childlike breasts.
i am almost a child agian,
almost.
i laugh like a child,
thinking that it is this child's form
with a woman's eyes, unblinking,
knowing
that you would have me under you
almost hidden by you, and your heated
needful push.
where were you, when i looked like a woman?
where was the fucking lust when i weighed
180 lbs.


anorexia

little deaths
tiny bites
from a life

inch by inch
eating myself up

year after year
haute couture suicide

slow and oh,
so chic.


(two notes. i was flattered when i submitted this for comments and critique to my poetry group because more than one member thought that i must be anorexic to have written about it in such a way and well. i'm not, never have been. also a note of interest pointed out to me by a member"little deaths" translates to,"petit mort" in french and is used to discribe an orgasm. puts an interesting spin to the poem.)


angel at the bar

i paint my nails
black
and drink white russians

i dance just
to feel another's touch
making myself smile to
see

what it feels like


learning to fly with a broken
wing


and god, i'm getting over you.

(this is one of a series of " bar room" poems that will someday become a booklength work.)