One leaves his roses

By the stagedoor, and passes,

Respecting the doors, the private places,

Retreating to other planes and public spaces. Joan Isaacson

Old Otter Creek has flooded again.

Maybe from the sleet tacking down.

Or the big moon. Listen to the lack of sound!

Listen.

Old Otter Creek has flooded again.

I hear one duck. At a party. Along.   Daniel

Spartan nude beneath the shimmer of a robe; her hair on end and her eyes bright in some dubious ecstasy. This is not she. The woman whirls, the short and tight black body glowing in red lights, and his eyes see the flame-dripping dagger. This is not she. He scratches in his sleep. Snorts, and is angry. Turns and is at rest.

HER MOUTH: A PROGNOSIS

It seems dismal now. That it is brown and dying; not the round, pink living thing it once would become; when pressed and bruised with kisses. It seems more desperate now. It's fullness never opens slightly, seducing the quietest breath of appreciation, or pain. It seems the dead, angry thing it is. The perpetual pout, not a sultry coyness, but the pout of dismissing the world.

It is an ugly thing; this sullen hateful dead mouth; with no remembrances of the soft or ungentle touches it once knew from flowers, or snowballs, a night-stick, a stone, or clean linen. It knows only its tight evil grip to the harsh teeth behind it.

It is worse than the whore's mouth now. The once unawakened young girl, now frightened by the nightmare of her world, aware. The outcast but indispensable woman, the constant worker. Her mouth. When most of the world has fallen into soft sleep, wrapped in that vague warmth of loved ones, or familiar loneliness, or expensive compromise; this mouth, the whore's mouth sucks again on the lipstick reddened cigarette, and begins to harden. The lips unspeaking cry 'fuck you too'. To the ever demanding flaccid phallus, and the rain of sterility.