| Three Poems by Caron Andregg | ||
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Mirage The house needs iron lungs baked to the point of stroke its airways collapsed Electric fans resuscitate the night with seared-feather draughts cactus-dry Adrift in this desert we've forgotten how to breathe each other's air An ocean breeze crashes and breaks against mountains far to the west I dive for deep water the mirage on your molten skin too hot to touch You rise from between my thighs sleek as a seal your face wet Air splashes time against the wall of your chest pressed like a shell to my ear Through the night a black fan turns and turns and it sounds just like the sea. Intersection We lay in bed, back to back, burning where the flesh intersects: shoulder, kidney, hip the soles of our feet. I would rather feel your palm pressed to my spine holding back the shadows from the moon through the blinds which lay across our backs like bars. But no-one wants to be the first to turn around. For you, only, I will try. I will try. For you. The wind remembers your hands, palms bleached white with their grooved, fractal tracings the grain of winter wood. And you, naked and white clean as a stripped tree, a winter birch quaking surrendering to the terror of love; birch-white and naked waiting for the wind to shiver you no leaf to strip. _________________________________________________________________________ CARON ANDREGG lives in Southern California. Her poems have been published in Poetry International, Spillway, Zero City, Minotaur, The Olympia Review, City Works, Talus & Scree, Chiron Review, Sheila-Na-Gig, Rattle and other journals. Caron Andregg is the editor of The Cider Press / The Cider Press Review. Visit The Cider Press Website: http://www.poetrycalendar.com "Mirage" was originally published in Gravity, http://www.newtonsbaby.com/gravity/ "Intersection" was originally published in New Zoo Poetry Review |
