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Rapacity
Even after all my hairs have turned
grey and I have taken to wearing
button down sweaters in the spring
and walking down the promenade
in Riverside Park every afternoon
at three, smelling the tulips, posies,
the earthy scent of the Hudson, I won't
be able to tell you what you did to me.
Not even the protection of crow's feet
and faded memories could lend me
enough courage to look you in the eye,
explain the torture of sitting across
from you week after week, wanting
nothing but permission to crawl
across that massive conference table
and stroke your pale cheek, rub
my hands against the course stubble
of your chin as the professor pressed
her hand to her throat and looked
on in disbelief. How could I admit
to the torrential showers of want
that beaded my forehead whenever
you greeted me in the halls, a ravaging
smirk across your lips like you knew?
Neither then nor now could I be
so bold as to tell you that your kiss
had the power of every cliche behind it
and my knees never really regained
their strength after that night
behind the field house. You can't know all
these years later I would still give
my heartbeat to steal away with you
to some shadowy corner where secrets
accumulate like karmic debt.
All we had was a once, but once
we had it, it was all I wanted.
You can't know that I must eat the lie
whenever your number appears
on my cell phone, a thousand sighs
and fluttery words about the latest
butterfly to make her way to your web;
elaborate descriptions of each perfect
wing, their sharp colors, oh yes,
this is the one. I wish I could tell them
about you and your taste for beauty
and innocence; how many of us have
stumbled away from you only to
find ourselves stuck, laced into
a web of charm that makes the struggle
to escape even more delicious
than the prospect of freedom.
Twister
We careen through sheets of rain
that pound the concrete like an angry
parent adding emphasis to a vital point,
sirens screams chasing us down each block.
Vision obscured, tree limbs blowing
at right angles periodically illuminated by
lightning bolts so strong they clear the clouds,
cast out the gathering grey in favor of
brilliant gold. Leigh runs ahead,
sopping hair plastered over her shoulders
like a cape; my Nebraska born Bat Girl
who knows violent weather will
guide us through these deserted streets
unharmed. The black velvet skirt I got
for five dollars at the Salvation Army
sticks to my knees, rides up my thighs
exposing quivering, pale skin
unaccustomed to the brutality of
wind and rain after a winter spent hiding
under Lycra and denim. My boots
splash through puddles of mud,
my mouth unable to stay shut, my smile
shining a spotlight on Leigh's back
as we stampede across sidewalks
layered in worms, this approaching twister
giving my city-girl bones a taste of
mortality far more thrilling than the threat
of high school kids bringing guns to school
or jay walking across Thirty-Third
and Park Avenue. Not until we barrel
into the basement where the rest of our dorm
sits watching The Real World and pretending
to read Descartes will I realize that Leigh is
crying. I watch her drop to the floor,
breath coming in starts and stops, jerking
like a sixteen year old getting to know
the brake pedal, drag her knees up to her chest,
and sob in harmony with the howling wind.
Carla Criscuolo was born and raised in New York City and claims the experience has spoiled her so badly she is not fit to live anywhere else. Her poetry has appeared in The Orange Room Review, The Blue Jew Yorker, and is forthcoming in Main Channel Voices and decomP. She works at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, NY. (October 2008)
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