2 Poems
- By Jennifer Beebe

2 Poems
- By Ken Pobo

Maria

Remember when
our men were down-
that barren season
found us
young and thirsty, reeling
with potent red drinks-
half drunk
we wore our maiden skin
like armor,
the sweat of denial
gleaming
on our teeth-
we were so true
we hungered like beasts.
How our jean strangled sex
vibrated, raw
the air around us
bursting
as we moved-
and girl
we
moved.
Such a waste
they'd say,
and we would
fling our hair, laugh,
"ain't that the truth brother,"
and sway away, allies
in our
newborn virtue.
But it didn't matter
in the end,
did it--
we ignited their fears,
charred
their devotion-
they could only
see us
culling men,
lifting our breasts
to any mouth
with a line-
as if we didn't have
heart.
But I'll say this now girlfriend-
you and I
we
had
heart.
So this is how I
will remember
us-
naked
draped on the couch,
each cigarette
lit from the last,
smoking away
our raging lust-
wishing

for those men
as if they could come and stay


until the smoke
left the room.





Leaving Montana

Driving through curtains
of settling smoke you talked
of Pat his last trip through how
a quail missed the windshield
then passed overhead. He drove
on heedless, people flashing their
lights and he didn't get it
until he stopped in Idaho found
the dead bird trapped in the skis
and I said how terrible how awful
wondering if it suffered buffeted
to death strangling in those damn skis
and you said it was just a bird
and I said it was a life and you
shrugged and said I'll give you that
and I should have asked give me
what? What can you possibly give me.

SANTAYANA

An empty room,
you tried to put
flowers in each corner.
They died. You
wrote the walls
into hummingbirds
which hovered over
smoke of your
dreams, fell
in love. It was,
briefly, as if you
had never been
an empty room--
you were full
of light. When love
didn?t love back,
the room emptied
again. You talked
to hummingbirds,
darkness.




SHOVELING

Steve heaves huge dollops
of snow on his garden
where a few faded green
twigs probe out, antennas

testing the air for signals
of spring. Winter is tough
starlings and venetian
ice blinds. Wind picks up

maple branches that shake
like cold retrievers, toss
more crystals down. Car
exhaust grays snowbanks.

Steve tries to place
where allium giganteum
bulbs are, round purple faces
lost in drifts. Roses, easy

to find but hard to picture,
each a surprise,
no two alike,
snowflakes--done,

he taps the shovel
against the fence, his beard
caked with melt, winter's trickle
slipping under his shirt.