The land ripens on Molokai. I saw it ripen once before my eyes, when we passed from the west to the east, along Route 460, the Maunaloa Highway. It ripened out of shrubland and thin, balding patches of kawelu; it gained a soft and greener luminosity as we drove, holding the shore east of Kaunakakai, [...]
Entries Tagged as ‘Vol 1 Issue 3’
June 8, 2007
After Ovid
A wink or giggle—that hesitation—
Was fashionable, polite even, as it
Undressed from the neck downward.
Lust both generic and clinical,
Planted kisses on a practice dummy,
The Poet’s Anatomical Encyclopedia.
Bit by bit by bit by bit by bit by bit
With the mouth, mouthpiece of the soul.
Shoulders,
Arms,
Nipples,
Breasts.
[under there’s a secret sealed valve—
ligamentum arteriosum—a baby heart’s
short-circuit substitute for breathing
in the airless [...]
June 8, 2007
Palo Alto Again
Airport #3.
I silently raise my arms
letting her run the metal detector
up my legs
against my back
my breasts
her mouth taut, tingling.
I remove my shoes, belt, ring
I hand over my phone.
I even laugh with the men at Customs
as they unzip my luggage,
pulling out espresso cups I rolled in socks.
“What’s this?” one asks
groping my coffeemaker.
Earlier, at the second airport, [...]
June 8, 2007
Jean, Nevada: Population 5
Ruby red slippers, a key,
or the way to go home
plotted on a wrinkled map stuffed into the glove compartment,
desert roads twined through wilted towns.
At the counter, the woman’s eyebrows wince
as the oven air breezes through the door.
Her potato face and broken pot teeth
Twist in a smile.
The rattle of the air-conditioner sweeps out the door,
caught up [...]
