Vacation In The Inner State

Vacation In The Inner State

There was a singe of summer
barbecue as something warmed
her, sipping. There was no curfew
on desire, in her wineglass,
or outdoors.

She scanned the span of backyard
grass, the unshaved blades:
her ocean, shattered
tiles: her shore.

Her body waves to bathing
suits never bought, only savoured
on a screen: now her mind.
No money meant a richness
grew, in spite, as did appetite

For one she writes. He likes
men. She craves
him, still. For in exchange, words
are close. Her husband’s

Touch is otiose, while her beloved
prose projects
a tenderness that sculpts
deserted sands
to ecstatic glass within her.

As A Novelist

As A Novelist

I control words coerced into being
more than myself. A concatenation
of pages, books, brains: manipulation
is my expertise. I shape your seeing.

I appease inspiration with my clutch;
whether tomes, music, lives—I have a touch
of kleptomania. Reined in my fist:
the fluidity of a pugilist

Dancing in a pen. Personality
disorders, so my borderlines are kept
writing, as I create reality

Conforming to my vision: great. Except—
buried in my lather of character
is a girl, and I cannot extract her.