love poem

When You Sit Quietly Next to Me

Reading from Norton's that poem you've been
Saving for me with a yellow tab.
It stews when the leaves are shut --
The energy mainlines through you until
You ground it into me.
The chattering verse slips to the right,
Then up,
Catty-corner to where we were before.
Your eyes tick towards me to judge reaction --
But this song moves too rapidly for you
And you become muddled like a pianist
On new music.
Some notes need to be replayed --
The rhythm reëstablished.


©1994 Chris Abraham

Memory of the Tousled-Haired Girl

In March only the smokers stood outside on the street where the party was allowed to spill.

With cigarette or without, smoke rose from the lips. I don't remember her smoking, but I remember the touseled-haired girl who read poetry from a cloth bound book.

She was the lover of an effeminate man who loved beautiful books more than beautiful women.

And possibly she loved words more than her lover for she used the tip of her tongue to lick them into the air, to press them into microphone.

It was the hair I noticed first. Soft waves in ringlets around the soft face with red lips and tiny features.

But then everything came into place and I blushed away from this girl with the bluejeans cinched at the waist, the heavy doctor martins and the sweater tops, flattering to the grace of the arch.

©1998 Chris Abraham

Umlauts and German Verbs

Your student room
Could barely fit one but
We fit nicely.

In your repose
You fiddled with
German verbs

I lay propped up
Dizzy with sleep,
Your words hypnotic.

You translate a German
Text: The Difficulties in
Educating Immigrants.

Your brow, with its
Strong dark lashes,
Furrows.

I study your pen
As it wiggles black
And dots umlauts.

Your questions peal
Through hazy sleep
I cover my head in duvet.

The thick cloth book
Slaps as you flip,
Finding meaning.

The staccato words form
an alien German landscape
as verbs and nouns splay:

Adjectives, adverbs,
Gender seem placed
Random like code.

You press me for answers
But I don't know your razor
Aryan tongue.


©1993 Chris Abraham

Untitled

I want to fuck her, you say to me in the car driving home,
Waves of hair crash around your face and
Your eyes are dark under the green street lights.

I often view her slim body through my camera.
You desire to touch the glossy skin between her shoulders more than I.

Angry car-eyes reflect. I turn my mirror away from high beams.

You show me your tattoo, the one deep between your thighs,
Its welted black letters like a birthmark.

Your jeans ride low, moving eyes to the crescent belly button ring you wear;

Your belly curves like bread, your shoulders and neck slouch against
slate hair that presses into your eyes.

Come fuck me now, it says in obscured welts.
You add that it used to say fear me, but you didn't like the sound of it.

I play light tufts between my fingers.

I show it to special people, you say as you press forcefully
down on my head.
You softly hum a tune that dances and I feel the Braille rub against my cheek.

She mentioned you as friends from school; her eyes linger
when she orders tea from where you work.

I notice the way you bend, deep from the hip, when you scrub the
coffee from marble tables.

The morning is yellow through curtains -- your skin glows.
The sheets bite me when I touch the spine.

A crimson heart raked by a crown peeks from sheets on
your shoulder.

You call yourself Bull Queen and I am afraid of the
thick rope muscle you carry in your legs.

At the warehouse, lights melt through rings of smoke.
Men in white jumpsuits Spin -- you are coronary.
Club kids freak and touch you;
You take them into the bathroom, unbutton, and show.

After bathing, the disco is in the tobacco of your
mouth, swirling like urine into sheets as you smoke.

When your fingers play the hairs on my chest, I remember
the churning Techno that pressed you against her torso.
Purple, yellow, and green amorphous light shows fiend
your skin as crystals blink in your head. You flip
Hair away from your lips, red like neat surgical incisions.
I sit aside and her supple body entwines, sticking like marshmallows,
with yours.

And me, some guy you fuck.

You sat on the concrete curb and drew smoke from the cigarette and
water from the crisp plastic bottle.

I met you here in front of the 7-11 on the pay phone. You wanted to get a
ride home from some guy you fucked.

I threw your bag into the rusted trunk and tossed you the red pack
of Marlboros.

She wants me to photograph you two together. She wants to be
creative with clothing; she wants to cross-dress
and you will paint on mustaches with pencil and lounge upon
each other like gangsters.

My apartment is heavy and clothes are strewn like flowers.

I am entranced by the rise of your stomach, the raunch of your
breath and your open legs.

I sweat and you laugh in a tight gurgle, rushing to
look through my closet.

Swirling like a fairy you jump and swing on tight feet, jouncing and
haranguing in some ritual.

You combine and the heavy apartment collapses upon your backs.

Glistening pearls drop to the floor and the light plays in a dazzle on
their enamel.

I am Catalyst. Otherwise you'd be gay. You are
Bull Queen.

©1995 Chris Abraham

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