Santa Fe Poetry Broadside
Issue #17, September, 2000 : -- -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -6 -7 -8 9 -10 -11 -12
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Joan Logghe
After Horses

                 

Dialogue for Change

And I’d say, you’re so beautiful.
And he’d say, I’m beautiful because of her.

And I’d say, wasn’t that great. We still have it
And he’d say, when I’m with you I want to be in your time.
When I’m with her I want to be in Hers.

And my body would say, I am old and full of sleep
And his mouth would say, I was saving the best kisses for last

And my hips would say, too many cakes, too many sedentary
Afternoons, and his hair would say, I am the hair
Of a younger man, slicked back

And my menstrual cycle would sing a swan song
And his work life would swallow him, and spit him out
A pit from a juicy man

And my hair would spin straw into sliver, and his Rumplestiltskin
Would grow hard and stamp its foot, say, guess my name

And my breasts would say nothing but become holy beggars
On the streets of my city and his eyes make offerings,
Donations of tears and donations of closing

And my mouth would grow wide singing praises and his hands
Would return from the world to our bed

And this is a prayer, for the ground is groundless, yet I
Have made him my ground,

And this is the other woman driving away,
and these the horses grazing, left behind

We two go on living like ancient Chinese,
On a meal and a wing, like San Francisco after the quake.

Copyright © 2000 Joan Logghe.

About the poet.

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Issue #17, September, 2000 :
Santa Fe Poetry Broadside.