At the Fish House, and: Posing Nude, and: A Storm Raged, and: A Family Woven Like Night through Trees, and: The First Night of Winter

At the Fish House

Captiva, Florida

I'm contemplating the difference between anger            and resentment but am interrupted each timea brown pelican crashes into the water, more recklessly                        it seems because of the approaching storm.

The water turns field and beast, like the mind            which is also like the body: tractor of memoryraking the ground you become when loss,                        proof of your heart, confounds you. Another dives.

I can't remember what it feels like to snare            my tongue in someone's mouth or the datemy grandfather died. It was a Tuesday                        in September. My mother woke me from stilted sleep.

Pelican chicks dive so deeply inside a mother or father's            gular pouch that the chicks were thought to becannibal, feeding on the blood of their parent's breast.                        To my right, lightning like a thought cut short.

From far away the pelican spots the menhaden,            which my eye is unable to distinguish from water.I get no further than the question. A cold wind                        rushes from my eyes. I go inside, shut the windows.

Posing Nude

after Living Room by Deana Lawson

If I were to choose a man to pose nudewith, it would be the ex whose handin mine, I couldn't distinguishfrom my own—just as, studyingthis photograph, it's hard to tellthe male's fingers, pressedinto a triangle, from the female's,decorated by acrylic nails so longthey curve like a penis might.

This particular ex anticipatedmy needs like a photographer considerssources of light. He'd wrap me in a blanketbefore opening the windowto smoke a cigarette. We gazed at each otherfrom a certain distance.In choosing him, I choosethe feeling of waiting nakedbeneath the throw, wanting nothingbut the last dashed ember—and nexthis mouth suckingmy earlobes and neck.

In Living Room, the couple staresat the camera. The male figure baresa tattooed chest, cuffed jeans,and Timberlands. Behind him, a womanis propped on the radiator. Leaning back,he rests on her right breast.

I know the composition is staged—down to the cast-off shoes, askewon the floor. A photograph tells truthsand lies. The couple pictured are notlovers. Lawson asked the female subjectwho she'd feel most comfortableposing nude with: she chose a friend.

Years ago, my ex sent me nude photos.At the time, he was livingwith the woman he would latermarry. His face remains justoutside the frame. The subjectof the email read, "For Your Eyes Only."

In the only photograph of us I've kept,I'm wearing a necklace whose claspwill soon break. Tenderness closesmy eyes into lines. He stares at meinstead of the camera; his face breaksinto laughter. That night in bed,after the picture was taken, a mosquitoworried past his ears. My mouth restedon his chest. He woke bitten and swollen.

A Storm Raged

after Gwendolyn Brooks and Etheridge Knight

The sun came, Miss Brooks,—as blood after all the night years.The sun came as gasoline, as the bleedingwatering our tidy green lawns.

We plugged the sun into our wallslike tv. We trained it to sit like a dociledog. And when it finally wasextinguished, we propped up the moonas a pale substitute. From what sourcedid it siphon light? The word nightlost its meaning. We couldn't say whywe were weeping. Out of habit, we prayed.

To weddings we wore black,to funerals white. While making love,we dared not open our eyes.

The thunder inside us grewfaint: disentangled from lightning.A storm raged, Miss Brooks—without an eye—without wind or rain.

A Family Woven Like Night through Trees

The man asks, Do you have a family? My thinkingbrushes the air between us like a wet mark

stains white paper. My mother's...