.................................
The Tyranny of Day People
(with thanks to Phil Levine for the title)
.................................

The sun's merciless broom
beats me awake,
and the pound-pounding
of tyroleans atop my apartment
nailing something to
someplace, and the voice

of my sister floating blondly
from the machine down the hall
calling get up! up!,
as though I'm some reluctant lily
she, green-thumbed and impatient, must coax
to rise and unpeel
from its own pale flesh.

And rolling, I scratch a thigh
through old silk,
sigh,

and the day is here.

 
.................................
Potentials Unlimited Presents:
Astrally Project in Less than One Month!
.................................

Sheila sweats away a gallon
of Murphy's Irish stout, lying on her back
beside me on my childhood bed.
The man on the cassette prepares us
for astral projection, filling our bodies
with warm orange-colored liquid.
He suggests that we think
of a laughing place, a meadow
or a long beach spread with clean sand.

I am wondering about Sheila,
largest girl I've ever known,
the heart deep within her
powerful as a whale's and rocking the bed,
our boat in the dark. I can't see
but only imagine the furrowed strip
of skin above her brows
as she dreams in technicolor
about that meadow, that warm beach.
We are asked, then told
to uncoil ourselves
from our bodies, and her breath
goes deep down the staircase
of her throat,

then rises ceiling-high. Her heart
beats on, steady soldier,
and I cling to the sound of its march,
as though such a desperate grip
will keep me from the dark
creeping into the cassette man's reasonable voice
as he says,
let go! your physical body is nothing!
let go!

 
.................................
Regret, One of a Series
.................................

Once upon a time, I decided he thought
my feelings soft and insubstantial,
innocuous as an orange without its peel.

My pride stung, I swelled three nights
like a huge balloon of suffering
until it seemed my feet would shatter
the front doors and my wrists
wear window frames as bracelets.

I raged and sobbed. He called me lovely,
smoothed my furious hair, his cheeks damp
as he touched the hard high bones
of my face.

I wanted to flood us in tears like Alice,
but he pulled my head onto his shoulder,
and, game dog, paddled us home, calling
me lovely, loving me even while
I struggled stubbornly to drown.

 
.................................
One Body Alone
.................................

A kind of perfection lives
in one body alone. Two hands
might touch like twin angels, pale
and symmetrical, and feet are mirror-smooth,
heels like beached river stones. Eyes
move in tandem, pupils swell
or constrict in complete agreement. Smiling lips
lift cheeks gently, and even eyebrows
cooperate in their arch way.

There is never any argument
between knee and calf. The foot follows
its mate in trust, as one body alone
sweeps around a room, vocal cords
doing their jiggity jig.

.................................
Jenniffer L. Lesh
.................................

 
Copyright © Jenniffer L. Lesh
July 1997

...short prose in this room by Marek Lugowski...
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