Poetry

Chocolate Waters

Epiphany

my mother’s a performance poet!
sitting in her living room
in Mt. Joy, Pennsylvania
she presides
regales the family with her poems
delivering her work as animatedly
as any seasoned pro
on the New York poetry circuit

and she’s funny!
she is lucille ball-redheaded-i-mean-it funny!

my 80’s plus still-so-pretty mommy dearest
hiding her poems as a child
because she thought they
weren’t “good enough”
has published in national magazines
been paid to write a poem
about someone she had never met and maybe

just maybe
she
dreamed this life
i think
is mine.

Naming Names

I remember you Don Green
That was yr name
You were my Poly-Sci. professor
I let you fuck me
in that tiny room
in that tiny off-campus trailer
Yr fiance – my friend – in another room
Yr list of how many women you’d fucked
written on the last page of the Yellow Pages
in the drawer next to the bed
where I let you fuck me
Asterisks next to the names
of the virgins
I was 22
I got an asterisk
Yr eyes
they were bulgy and green
like yr name Don Green
and yr hair pushed way back on yr balding head
when I let you fuck me
it hurt
I bled
I remember yr dick
it was long
it was thick
it seemed enormous
What did I know
ripped apart
in the room next to my friend
you were her fiance
I remember the names in yr phone book
I remember your name
Don Green

that silly haircut

makes you look like
a cow
why do i think that?
you spent so much $ on
that
haircut that
makes
you look like a
cow
your lovely long eye
lashes
so
sexy
now they make you
look
like
a cow
i see you feel
sheepish
oh no i
mean cowish
i mean i’m so
sorry that haircut
makes you look like
a cow you
look
ashamed
you certainly do you
certainly should be
be
cause you do
look
like a cow
but i love cows
i do
i do
i certainly do i
love you