Secretary, 1960

Each morning
in the fractured
shafts of sunlight she woke.
Then, powdering the rubber girdle
would slip it over the thickness
of her hips
abundant curves like a ripening pear.
Her body swayed
with the morning streams
of buses and trains.
The other women too,
their coarse fingertips
fashioned by hours of typing
tight in their laps.


She told me of this
years later.
Her stiff knuckles,
swollen with time.

The Work of Your Hands

after Jane Stairs' ceramics

Your piece,
sat with a wide
and jagged lip,
deep belly
balanced on a white pillar.

Age left wrinkles,
cracking skin
where your
your fingers
held lightly.

Boston Aquarium

The glass was smudged
with once hot
and sticky breath
now turned stale,
the grooves
of fingerprints
stuck sloppy
small ripples
 left in our passing.

I sat quiet
in the dark shadow
of blue light
laid smooth
over my pale skin,
and watched
as you uncurled
your muscular arms
one by one,
probing.
Each fleshy
pink mouth
kissing the barrier
between us.