1.

Her lips are a lake of still, lukewarm water

Men say:

Her lips are a lake of still, lukewarm water

When they press against each other.

 

Tucked in a place that’s almost home, Andi sleeps with a good book. Her mind concocting lives that her eyes see flutter about, but are not hers.   Most do not know her troubles. Every day she looks behind to find the men that would be no good to her; that could not love, or had to have her.  She left me for one of them, for the one (it was not me).  Said Love called her back.  

 

Andi is a woman that tries to trust all men, but does not trust them: I see a lake in her lips of still, lukewarm water.  I have a spot for her on the makeshift mezzanine where we used to sit. She does not know it, but I would like to think, it is the same spot, he has for her.  A man called her back (and I, I am just a boy).  

Most men do not know her troubles...

 

Lips of still, lukewarm water:

She would be happy, if I had my way.

 

 

2.

I think she is twenty-three. Her hair falls soft on her clavicle, which is the softest shade of brown, like caramel or creamed coffee.  I imagine that men have always wanted her and her unassuming smile. Maggie, who carries a subtle, unpretentious beauty that make men crave for her.  They all try to have their way: Soft whispers in the corner-streets say some have.  They all make their way to their front doors to watch her. She sways like a southern folk song past them, smiles hello.  We can all see the sweat that gathers underneath her clothes, smells like lilacs and strawberries.  We like her because she is like the women our fathers chased after, the ones they built homes for.  Men give her foreign roses, jewels that do not match her eyes, but I being of low economic stature, do not have such things to offer.  God knows who keeps her heart, who fingers her sundress up on a warm august night.  

…He wipes her hair of her face (I imagine), tucks it behind her right ear.  He dries her soft, ripe body with his hands, wraps his tongue in hers, slowly.  It’s cold from the ice cube.

 

Her walk is a southern folk song

When she wears her Sunday’s best

Sweat gathers around her body

Makes a slow roll

down her spiral

curves.

 

All after her soft, ripe body.

 

She kissed me once, you know

between her fourth or

fifth drink.

Fast as lightning.

Amidst a dance and a song,

I felt of her lower lip

Fast like things gone too soon.

A moment

the drinks won’t let her remember.

 

I remember. It was

Vivid, like a nacreous cloud

in the sky.

 

Dangling.

 

3.

I met her on the way to the city.  Rain crept through the ceiling.  She walked towards me gingerly and silently and put upon me a scent of vanilla I can hardly remember.  The things our encounter transformed into, I’d rather keep.  That was then.  Now, I see the distance grow like slow honey down a tree bark. At times there’s an ocean between us.  A distance that  d r a g s  the smallest things to crash into me.  Pecking at me, with thoughts of exclusion, when before her aim was to be an intricate part of me.  I imagine the routine of two souls converging got old, and she grew tired of the stale environment of my sighs.  She is a simple woman: Sunlight upon pavement on a summers’ day.  Bright, like a new morning through a window.  A simple woman that has never known a woe or wound that won’t heal.

I keep dragging her down

She won’t admit it

But I’m dragging her down.

As I look for a happier version of me.

Woman-Child

Only has a backbone

F o r  m e .

 

She is letting me go

Does not want to,

But is letting me go.