Santa Fe Poetry Broadside
Issue #15, April, 2000 : -- -1 -2 -3 -4 -5  6 -7 -8 -9 -10 -11 -12
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Women Becoming Poems:
Melissa Hopf

                 

Virgin's Crawl

I've driven my desire here in a
winter blue Honda Civic.
Haven of cigarettes, use of the "F" word,
and sex, saved til now
at seventeen.

To South Pomona
ageless suburb, crackling with gunfire.
Brown dirt, shedding lawn, coffin sky.
Charlie perfume floats up the walkway with me
like a highschool banner,
lapping at the air.

He opens the door
to his dead mother's house,
still cluttered
with her flower print
table runners, silver dishes meant for a buffet,
her manicurist's table.

Next to his bed,
the police radio transmits a haze of static
over his lotions, his books, his pocket size comb.
The room smells savory like sweat,
like skin, like him.

He pours clean pink wine
into plastic cups,
"Here, relax."
The taste of Walgreen grapes
turns on my tongue.

I sink into his pile of week old sheets,
his broad laughing teeth,
the slope of his shoulders lit by television.
I smile at my evolution.


1999

Copyright © 2000 Melissa Hopf.

About the poet.

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Issue #15, April, 2000 :
Santa Fe Poetry Broadside.