If

The shop bell rings.
He enters - the clerk flirts against
the periphery of his interest and giggles.
Whe he leaves, she forgets him
but feels more alive and so does he.
Weeks later, the blue sky
reminds her of his eyes
and she smiles.

The man at the party touches her leg
apologizes somewhat unprofusely
hands her his card and says
call me
She laughs and says sure
as he turns away, she crumples
his card into a tiny ball
and throws it under the table.
Her eyes bore a hole in his back
and he knows that she won't.

The woman he works for
suddenly appreciates his worth.
She knows now that he is strong
but has no idea what it took to cope.
He still has the fortitude and enough
affection to forgive. At times
he flusters her with his forward nature.

Someone she once knew
reads a poem thrown through space
like a message sucked through a
clear vacuum tube. He rubs his
eyes and pushes away a memory.
Forgets how hard his cosmic
dust hit the windshield, shattering
her into a million pieces.

The woman he lives with sees the
passion in his eyes and turns away
before it grips her. The man she lives
with ignores the fatigue in her eyes
and continues working. Somewhere,
children want to grow as tall as trees.

The woman on the train shifts
uncomfortably as he stares at her
stockings. The man who sells coffee
wonders why she inspects the shape
of his eyebrows. It is all about the
missing bits. The things that remind us
of one another. We turn, in different
spheres, and wonder;
If.


n.e.

Less Than Perfect

Is it too much to ask
To be beautiful
In your eyes?
Look upon me
And tell me what you see
Am I just that familiar image?
Am I just another girl?
Or am I something special?
Do I have to improve?
Do I have to change?
Perfect, less a smile you say –
Perfect, less something
Always –
Less than perfect
But do you see me
As imperfection
Perfectly?
Am I beautiful in your eyes?
Tell me –


mm548

Architecture of Flirtation

My natural beautiful tendency
is to kiss you
and make it hurt

poison your throat with the
taste of my tongue

drown you like an olive
in a glass of gin

cross my legs endlessly
bat you with my eyelashes

weaken your architecture
shatter your windows

strip you of fear
until I crawl inside, naked

haunt you like a vacant building
shake my chains against the what is

grind candy hearts into your
thighs, a sweet tattoo

flirt endlessly with the night
furiously brand my heat into you

bleach you of everything but this:

the shape of me
forever tangled in your sheets


notelvis

Changeling

You are so close to me
I could reach out and touch you
Sitting in my orbit
I could reach out and kiss you
I notice you
the curl of your lip as you smile obligingly
indulging me
We dance around each other
not close enough

(I remember the surprising softness of your lips)

You fill my thoughts,
my idle moments,
slipping in and out of daydreams.
I don't remember letting you in.

I want you yet I don't (want you to want me)

You are with me in the joy, the swiftness,
the cold and the brightness,
darkening the sadness of loss like a shadow tracing mine.
We could shine brightly
(and yet I hold back)

Dragon

He polishes his
gorgeous scarlet scales.
Coils, stretching, sinuous
on his polished limestone bed.
Curls his lip to let
a breath of flame
curl tongue-like
between gleaming teeth.
Sparks light his eyes
as ancient memories
clank through his serpentine brain
waving their ineffectual lances.
Clink of metal
on metal
break through yesteryear,
call him to
put his sculpted head
out of his lair
into today.
The crag below
bears not knights,
but climbers.
No sport there
- he draws himself back
into fantasy.

by Kamala