Swell Zine: Poetry

The river is an appetite, a welcoming maw,
smacking its rubbery lips for left-overs: the acrid suds
of effluence, a skier's red pulp, the softened blubber
of a wailing manatee, whole cars engulfed.
Two years back, an elderly man, Sunday driving lost,
drove down the sloped surface of the downtown boat ramp.
They found the metal bones six feet below the river top,
a floating rag of hat, his knuckles still gripping the wheel.
In the brewery above, young professionals clink cocktails
at sunset, cheer and clap as the bartend rings his bell.

I am smelling the St. Johns River, metallic in the mouth,
a brown band, scooped and dredged, now gun-blue
waves under the darkening sediment of sun.
I am watching two dolphin swim downstream,
into a furnace of misdirection, muddied, bright-eyed,
they wave their slate hasp of skin, wink at the bartend,
circle and jest, fools to fools; a mari usque ad mare.
Turning to my friend, I say: Dusty, everything is simpler
than you think, as the dolphin tunnel under the bridge,
yet more complex than you can imagine, one dolphin turns to wave.

Nothing pours out of her mouth, those lips like the lifeboats
of Hafíz, steadying my course, ready for the leap.
One eyebrow curves wide as time in the clock of her face.
I taste the spitball of sweet effulgence, like the liquor
in my glass, sliding heat, and dusk is busy, spreading itself
across the flannel sheets of my bed, the taste of what's to come
sweeter than what has come, the passion of water for rhythm,
when its flow is suspended under an iron bridge.
She squeezes my hand, my fingers webbed in hers,
a flipper out of water, swim-ready and stalled.

Absence and Need

Mud daubers build castles on cement
upside down palaces, the pucker
of attempt and the beach sand
drops of completion stuck
to the rafter outside this window.

From my car seat, hands on the steering wheel,
I kissed you, realizing
how greedy my mouth was for yours.
Today I wonder about home
and what's in a kiss?

Meanwhile, Mary Oliver wakes at dawn,
walks to her pond to be dazzled,
delights in parable and process,
the splintering contrast, the simplicity.
If I had binoculars, I'd have nowhere to go.

Absence and need - like a hot stone
without its snake. I keep seeing
the dance of your eyes, flicker of tongue.
We both know what a kiss can mean.
Dumb knowing. Delphic sting.

Grounded

Her eyes are sails, full blown
in the calm that links us
across the ocean of dark,
the flat plane of separation.
She speaks and her voice
forbids interruption.
The scent of nothing hangs,
caught in a lull. We measure
words like probability, like the ragged
sea, the inopportune drift,
the salt hanging on our tongues,
waiting for taste.
"Carolyn," I say as if I would
step foot in that lake of sound,
perilous as silence.
"Carolyn," I want to say,
"what names do we use now?"
Every vessel needs a moniker
and we travel together, mostly
going, mainly apart.
Will it be "Forever Yours,"
or "Heartbreak Hotel" or
"Mystic Traveler"?
Caught in the ebb, our vessel cannot
part lips, ache and wonder rock,
and across that gravelly rim of dare,
memory floats - a buoy, long-anchored,
mesmerizing in its dip and poise.
Fresh air sniffs your hair,
chestnuts mimic the tenor of
your voice wary, wrapped in its shell,
refusing to open. "Carolyn," I would
have said: "Call me the first mate,
call me the captain," or reverse.
It doesn't matter.
But this vessel shines in the sun,
it begs for sea worthiness,
tilting toward the deep end,
all the while landlocked, silently adrift.

Blazon

My lover's eyes capture prey, a dark trap,
the eyes of the hunter with hands like guns,
black pistols with quick triggers.
My lover's eyes are the eyes of a harp seal,
are the echo of a tuning fork tongue.
Her lips are like a glass seal,
like the lining of a purse, frontispiece of a bible.
Her teeth are a column of round numbers,
the predator's watch.

Her tongue is the communion host,
the tongue signs duende in the hall of her mouth.
My lover's mouth is Plato's cave,
her voice is the beacon light in the distance,
her voice is Aesop's tortoise, it is pancake syrup,
it is Mozart's Eine Kleine Natchmusic.

My lover's breasts beckon like Italian bread,
containing both sugar and yeast, sweet and tawny.
Her breasts are skeins for a long journey,
they rise like the Indian Mound above
the golf-green grass on the outskirts of Tallahassee.

My lover's feet are the leaves of the wild olive
undisturbed in the February breeze.
Her feet are the marble of Greek mansions.
The ankles and calves of my lover are fences
around a field of auburn hay; they are stubborn as coffee stain.

My lover's thighs are wide gates, those thighs are a ladder
to the loft and a ladder to the wine cellar.
Her thighs are companion animals, pleading for palms
fingers, nails; my lover's thighs rise like the phantom
attacking Macbeth, like idols these thighs command attention.

My lover's center is a teapot steaming.
It is a Jules Verne fantasy.
It is the exact distance between two points.
My lover's center is the frill and pluff
of decorative ribbon, curled and frenzied.
It is the green dragon and the black one.
Her center is the key to Daedulus' maze
It is any painting with a house alongside water.

Her back is the slope of wide valley,
where wild horses gallop and then rest.
Her buttocks are a mountain pass;
they are undulating figures in a white frieze.
My lover's butt is a game of catch, the clasp
and release of hand, the perfect shape of swell.
My lover's gait is the pen that composes poetry.

She is the fresh trail cut through thick woods.
She is the machete shredding despair, and the knife;
the pioneer of hope, a marathon swimmer.
My lover is the wily acrobat upending my dreams.
She is the spectrum of sunset color, the white cloth of belief.
My lover is the first stanza of morning, the coda of night.

Ann White lives in Florida and works at a community college. Her poetry is published or forthcoming in a few journals including Triplopia, Harrington Lesbian Fiction Quarterly, Blue Fifth Review, Good Intentions and Bay Windows. She is currently editing an anthology of writing by non-native college students dealing with topics related to immigration, home, belonging and language. Ann can be emailed at eden000@gmail.com or visit her blog at http://redhibiscus05.blogspot.com/.