2 Poems by
Andrena Zawinski
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THE POET, DRIVING
(Dodge Poetry Festival, Main Stage, Waterloo N.J.)
The poet,
white knuckled
at the podium, drives
the crowd. And reeling,
as if taking on mountainous S curves,
or hydroplaning minefields,
the poet maps metaphors
in shag bark and hickory, staggering
the dappled sundown.
This could be
Kansas, Saigon, Mozambique, Peoria,
a road, bridge, underpass
where the poet dresses deathbeds
in thin sheets
of memory.
The clenched fist
becomes an open hand,
fingers that point
press into prayer.
And our silences
grow ravenous for this.
We choke down whole landscapes,
drink in cloud bursts, throb
with the starlit sky. We lean into the words
like a slow dance pinned to ourselves
like a corsage, like a lover, like a poem,
like the language
of applause.
Publication Credit: Pittsburgh Post Gazette, 8/13/00
THE TOUCHING GAME
There¹s a man
standing on
the corner
looking up inside
your window,
a flasher unzipping
first signs of spring
in schoolyard squeals.
He¹s that playmate,
the point of your pen
addressing the back
of his neck on a roll
of the dice, all the cards
face up on the board:
He¹s a little brother
with a nightmare in
your bed and his hand
at your panties, your
father with instructions
on love, in secret, the fear
of dying. He¹s the priest
calling you into his
rectory after confession.
Or a dentist, knee at the groin
for leverage in a difficult
extraction, a doctor circling
your nipples in recovery after
a tonsillectomy. Like a barfly,
his tongue down your throat,
he¹s a comic relief delivering
dumb blond jokes across
America¹s big screen TVs.
He¹s that midnight
deep sleep interrupter
phone call breather
grumbler on the line,
your shut window
in the heat of summer,
the hooked latch, dead-
bolted door, handgun
in the bedroom drawer.
He¹s a neon vacancy sign
turning on for a keyhole peek
at you with your clothes off,
a masked man, screwdriver
sparking shadows at your cat-
walk landing, wolf whistles
constructing your name at
the break of day: psss psss psss
hey miss kitty, here pussy pussy.
He¹s that man on the bus too close
at the wrong stop, reflection
steaming the glass, or some cop
for a number blind-eying a sign
you ran in a rush to get some-
where. He¹s your publisher
passing on your poems in his
hand as a dream in his room
on a getaway weekend.
He¹s the tour guide
driving you in
before dark
when you could have seen
Paris light up.
Publication credit: Human Equity through Art Quarterly 1:1.
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