‘Crush #49’ by Lea Graham

    

                                                A space must be maintained or desire ends.     

                                                                                                —Anne Carson

about your knees he whispered

above the hough, above the tongue

across certain palms

after evaporation, lacey & leaf-like

against oil derricks, the dark undazzle

along the avenue, hair toss & fuck all

among a scumbling of colors

around, glittering with joy

at the table : you’re beautiful    you’re beautiful    pass me the pepper

before I go

behind the dunes

below the belt

beneath alabaster, vitrified

beside himself

between sacrum & ilium

by gum

down river

during gibbous moons

except Vienna & Paris

for this poem

from the 12 strings to my heart

in rough sheets three times or more

in auricles, in airports

inside the stall beneath

instead of a kiss

into the south of it

like her petunias

near(er) she said

of moustache to helix

off the charts

on the lawn, paler than condoms’ gleam

on top of her nightstand

onto the next thing

out of chants & variation

outside windows, that entering takes away

over & over & over (again)

past Arcturus

since April is

through corners we dance

to Halsted & Taylor

towards geometry

under enormous pressure of circumstance

underneath, yes, underneath

until Cooley came to town

up Lisa Lane

upon learning “My Foolish Heart”

with him not there—

within ear’s hive

without him—    she hears him, she sees

(published in The Bedside Guide to the No Tell Motel, Second Floor Anthology, 2007)

‘Crush Starting with a Line by Jack Gilbert’ by Lea Graham

    

    

Desire perishes because it tries to be love

& so, I think, why search or seek it?  Entering

its way out the backdoor, calling as Narcissus

himself, curious to himself only—only

this echo.  Yet, some days wild turkeys wing clumsy

across windshields, or poets come to town

& language flocks before flying south, before

jubilee, before hush & slack. In chance,

what we flush from beech & oak, or her  flush blooming

at a table, remains, persists as flight, or flown:

 trace of bird in my eye, balloon drift among sky,

proposing hand, arm.  What is not sexual, though

sex is part, catches life en theos.  Not love, but its

roaming kin & nonetheless, wonderful alone.

(published in The Notre Dame Review, Summer/Fall 2010)

'Crushed in Poughkeepsie Time' by Lea Graham

    

    

Whale-rending along these shores leads us to South Seas, a silk factory, hotel burnings; like dreams’ net or currents one with another— hemlock-black,

brackish & lovely, fresh or tang, estuary’s switch.  That all time cannot exist at once in our heads: cigar-making & electric trolleys, how you bent & sighed into

your shoes, peeled oranges in the shape of eyes.  What is forgotten lingers, the “lion-headed store front,” bobs or busts through this now, a warning without

warning, can you dig it, a buoy of the past, place-marker & maker, tricked out as “picking your feet” in The French Connection, cough drops called “Trade”

& “Mark,” rising high school rafters in Marian Anderson’s contralto. 

Imagine histories current: ferries trawl nigh 300 years; Brando haunts Happy

Jack’s on Northbridge Street.  We might say Poughkeepsie & hear “reed-covered lodge near the place of the little-water,” “the Queen City,” “safe & pleasant

harbor,” look & see the Pequod chief & his beloved spooning in the shade.  This river sailing the Half-Moon back to Crusades, a city spelled 42 ways & young

Vassar brewing in Newburgh. Rio San Gomez is the Mauritius is the Muheakantuck is the Lordly Hudson, place of the deepest water & river

of the steep hills— what if we are still dancing in Chicago’s hottest summer as Wappingi braves are coming up the path & Van Kleek’s house just yonder

Fall Kill?  You are writing me letters from Rio Dulce & I am eating bagels at the Reo Diner.  Modjeski sits imagining this bridge; his mother swoons as Juliet

in Crakow.  At night the lights of these still busy foundries become strange fires, beckoning America—& maybe not; their great furnaces’ ambient noise, soughing

across these waters; concurrent worlds asleep, dreaming, not dreaming

(published in The Notre Dame Review, Summer/Fall 2010)