Sunday, January 6, 2008

January Poems #6: Ode to a Really Cute Pair of Ankles

It's surprising what will sometimes catch your attention about someone you find attractive. Eyes? Sure. Smile? You bet. T and A? Yes and yes. But ankles? Really? Really. Too bad the woman in question didn't really know what I felt, because I couldn't articulate it in any way but this. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I know of a woman with a beautiful brain,
lyrical name and curling dust hair--yet
I like her ankles! The echo of spring
days that drive in like railroad spikes:
Staking me down, filling my senses with
faint grins. I wish they were my ankles.
Mine are so swollen; they crackle like
plaster. But hers could hold up infinity
with ease; their flexing could stop time
warmly. I'll never know those ankles by
touch, only by sight across a bright room,
miles it seems--crossing and waving to me
with their twisting, never swimming across
with their companion, the woman, who will
never know what I feel for her joints.

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