The pandering after a clutch
that was the trigger, the found poem, the surmise �
bow-legged bravado & all that
hope for deep erotica
shimmying;

candles burning next to the radiator
melting wonky into
flaming trees
of stir & settle;

& love on the wood floor
a shoehorn splinter of love
mortally seeming last chance though
really � Not.

The woman�s later kisses
are a murmur of ecstatic condolences.
The man, prettily alive, strokes shoulders & falls
summer-thriving asleep.

*

You�d keep him if
you could you think,
at the same time
not even believing
yourself.

More correctly you�d keep
the self you become here
lying all there
next to him.

None of this has
a thing to do with
committing emotional
fraud.

*

Years later in one of those dreams
where all the players have
the wrong names, wrong faces

I recognize his hand holding a tea pot from Tibet
extending out of the sleeve of a homeless woman
who hasn�t allowed touching in
a decade.

I have the most intense urge to kiss her,
drink the limp green tea
straight from the spout
spent leaves
& all�



�2007 by Lisa Gordon
previously published in Poetry SZ