Poetry:
A return engagement by one of our favorite poets:

 

Shook Still

My cigarette hit the pavement still lit,
still hot, a ground wire hissing
in wind before the storm
circled us like a cowboy’s lasso –
the way the circle started at ground-zero,
underground before over head
before taking off like a bullet
through Afghanistan
over the Manhattan skyline.

It was September; it was 2001,
you walked home to me backwards:
elevator to hailing taxi to pacing platforms
to stepping back inside the train heels first –
a breeched birth, born-again, home-again
in our bed making 5am love
before you met your train,
before you met your taxi,
before you met your elevator
when we were still in fruitful darkness:
you - wide awake; you – in the moment
as I moved with you in sleep
and moved and moved
until you shook still.

 

Night Swimming

It’s the anticipation I miss most,
days when I didn’t have to
will my weight thin.

When I wore a bikini with ease
during hot nights night swimming.

At midnight, we’d dive
in the Westerman’s pool
to play a round of Marco Polo
where I lost my fifth sense of sight
navigating through rippled water,
through echo location –
the seeing ways of the dolphin and bat,
and I forgot I needed eyes
in moments chlorine currents
rushed over my thoroughbred thighs
in anticipation of her gill-skinned graze,
in anticipation of his pulsating wrist,
his hand suddenly slipping
down my clavicle,
suddenly copping a feel.