Brief Encounter

A man with large hands

waits in line behind me.

The glass of the vending machine

reflects my restless eyes.

They tell me

my face would be missed

but no one ever tells me by whom

so I tell myself I am missed, saying my name aloud

remembering what I was called.

Then, I wondered

if the last time he kissed me

did I taste good

or just good enough for now?

I wanted to tell him

I was all out of that flavor.

My mother once told me

that girls like me are

like airport waiting areas,

only for the time in between

for nodding off to the fluorescent flashing

before a red-eye flight,

like the sticky stains

of the latch-key kid who was left home alone till dawn

calling for her father whose broad back was more familiar.

My mother said

that girls like me are

like the dingy armchairs of

passing through for a stranger who is waiting for

a connecting flight on his way home to his wife.

He is up now.

He glances over at me leaning on the wall

as he fumbles for change.

He presses B4 for chips, gets cookies instead

Smiles saying, “You’ll do for now.”

#Defector

You still sleep with your bedroom door locked

your front door bolted and

Chained
as you are to those memories

how you slept with your most faithful lover (fear).

Tonight
you lie awake with
streams of silver from your lit eyes.
He is still circling just above your head.

Though now,
your belly is thick and full

your lips moist
your head un-cracked

you still remember.

The night he raided your room

sifted the jewel of your body out of your blankets
stripped you
placed bills into your privates, your open mouth,
as you lay on cool concrete floors
speaking gasps like your native tongue.

He asked
"Where were you headed?"

He is smiling.
Crisp. Square. Thick. Solid.
His boots shiny

till the first contact
with your flesh which holds onto each blow like a catcher’s mitt.

An elbow crumbles
your spirited nose line
cracking your face down to your jaw
now unhinged
your mouth gaping open to taste the sour air.

You swear to yourself that
when you open your eyes
you will gather yourself
each piece
and go.

It's just

even after the Leaving
even after you've finally done it and you've finally won
no bolt or lock
can unchain you from his sweat-infused scent,
how it smells of your blood and spit
curdling at the back of your/his throat.

How even now,
each time you try to smile,
the crack beneath the sealed skin still begins
to part.

**

This poem is about North Korean defector and survivor who was caught in China, beaten and raped. It is based on an actual occurrence as described from a KBS documentary.

Somedays

by Billy Collins

Some days I put the people in their places at the table, bend their legs at the knees, if they come with that feature, and fix them into the tiny wooden chairs. All afternoon they face one another, the man in the brown suit, the woman in the blue dress, perfectly motionless, perfectly behaved. But other days, I am the one who is lifted up by the ribs, then lowered into the dining room of a dollhouse to sit with the others at the long table. Very funny, but how would you like it if you never knew from one day to the next if you were going to spend it striding around like a vivid god, your shoulders in the clouds, or sitting down there amidst the wallpaper, staring straight ahead with your little plastic face?

Dialect of a Skirt

The young girl wanted a new voice. After all, people got new things every day. A new hip, a new nose, a new set of suspenders. She adored the consonants that landed like wooden shoes. She loved the type of L-sounds that made a mouth drool from the back of the tongue to the front. She practiced her new voice into seashells, tin cans, caves. She gave her first performance quietly, into the ear of her sleeping dog. She could tell by his snorting that his dreams were of fat tree trunks and black, truffle-filled soil. Later, she drove to the local gas station and used her new voice to ask for a pack of cigarettes. She wasn't wearing a bra, but the attendant didn't notice. He was too busy listening to the way sound seemed to drip out of her mouth as she said the word, Camel. by Erica Miriam Fabri

Grief

Trying to remember you

is like carrying water
in my hands a long distance
across sand. Somewhere people are waiting.
They have drunk nothing for days.

Your name was the food I lived on;
now my mouth is full of dirt and ash.
To say your name was to be surrounded
by feathers and silk; now, reaching out,
I touch glass and barbed wire.
Your name was the thread connecting my life;
now I am fragments on a tailor's floor.

I was dancing when I
learned of your death; may
my feet be severed from my body. 

Stephen Dobyns

Balances

in life
one is always
balancing

like we juggle our mothers
against our fathers

or one teacher
against another
(only to balance our grade average)

3 grains of salt
to one ounce truth

our sweet black essence
or the funky honkies down the street

and lately i’ve begun wondering
if you're trying to tell me something

we used to talk all night
and do things alone together

and i’ve begun

(as a reaction to a feeling)
to balance
the pleasure of loneliness
against the pain
of loving you

—Nikki  Giovanni

Communication

She purposely did not wear panties

stood above his head to pretend-adjust

the lights above.

He looked up

and wondered if he'd remembered

to turn out the lights at his house,

knowing from her smile

that he would sleep and wake

beside her again.