Everyone's Daughter Is A Virgin

Everyone's daughter is a virgin
for at least five seasons or
as long as we can love her fully
clothed. But no one, no
one can persist without a gasp
of nudity, least of all your neighbour that
faceless intruder who will open
a door you had once thought
to have closed:

her chicken legs protruding
from thin, tulip-coloured
blankets, her two lips making space,
newly-beveled, sweet
and lubricated latches
emitting vowels of love. Together
all the frenzied atoms
in the whole damn building chanting
in, in. With your able fingers you
quickly pressed those gaping knees, one
against the other till they
bruised, fastened all those
little latches shut.

But your neighbour thought
to enter, left her
breath-less
as-phyx-ia-ted on the lawn
beside the tulips, palms
upturned and open, neck
salient, swollen. she couldn't
wait? Now blank and comatose - a
profound state. If not
the suburbs then where
where can a girl keep herself
closed?

As a result
of assault, one may obtain
a heightened fear of neighbours, don't
let them in, in, in.

At night
your second husband finds you
desperate and unanswered, thumbing
pages of her journal,
searching for an entry, potential
points of access, a faulty
handle, broken window, some
poetic explanation, a description
of the body - how or why
it opens, floods with colour
when it's wounded.

lying in the dark// Susan

I lost my love on the highway,

black pounding our bodies, squeezing

divergent landscapes - car,

road, dirt, skin - together so

tightly. We drove

an off-road vehicle but we were on-road

kind of people. I knew happiness then

the way a bird knows her young

in an instant. I loved him in the quiet

of the SUV. The smell of hard work

rinsed and settled on his skin, his cheeks

as soft and white as sleep. I drove,

one hand on the wheel, the other caressing

his inseams. Isn't it funny

how we are all afraid of the dark? Sure,

you can say you're not

but who believes you? I was wearing

a blue satin dress, strapless

to show off my pilates-arms, which he nibbled

as I gripped the wheel

and him. This is how love hits you:

like a late-night collision,

a chance encounter, a turn

you take to fast. Blood scattered

like the contents of a purse

across the pavement. My love

flew off into the night.

I shone:

my arms so tanned and lean,

my dress lit up by headlights.

I thought I was on fire. I cried

deep into that boomy sea of pitch and tar -

I'm not afraid of you.

I lied.

Susan

Oh I'm so bad at this whole 'housewife thing,'
the cooking, cleaning, matching towels and sheets.
Sure, watch me drown in domesticity.
Just notify the hunky life guard - she'll
be here all week. I always count on men
to up and leave. My daughter sees my falls
in love, my spills in lust. Alone again,
it's just us two, she's perfect, almost all
I'll ever need. But who'll appreciate
my heaps of lingerie? The virgin, tart,
and even Lois Lane? It's sad: my waist's
ten times to small to match this bloated heart.
I'm sick of new beginnings, absent ends;
the road to love is slick with hairpin bends.