by Ricki Thompson

It wasn’t spring.
It was the third Wednesday in Lent
And our principal was pulling
The heavy vinyl curtain between us,
Boys on one side,
Girls on the other,
Our fifth grade split
Like a cross of section of a tulip,
Here is the stamen, here is the pistil,
And behind us on the plaster wall
Was Jesus, bleeding
And with downcast eyes.
A white-capped nurse gave
Each girl a sanitary napkin
And the vocabulary we would need:
Erection, menstruation,
Fertilization, reproduction,
She piled up words like mortared bricks.
The movie was called
Growing Up and Liking It.
It showed an animated egg
Clicking along the fallopian tube,
A product on the conveyor belt
Of early automation. We saw
The outline of a naked boy,
Heard the nurse say,
Of course you know about wet dreams,
The words escaping like
Houdini’s doves. Did she mean
That dream about the swamp
Where snake-like monsters
Swelled with venom? We knew
There were other words, unspeakable,
Engraved in toiled stalls,
And written in our hearts
The words of Scripture,
Know ye not that your body
Is the temple of the Holy Ghost?
Each girl held a sanitary pad,
Wide and long as our Girl Scout
Troop’s raft. As we stood
At the edge of the swift current
Without the strong arms of
Fathers and brothers to guide us,
We would learn to ferry ourselves
From this world to the next.

by Roger Pfingston

Today, dear one, I attempt the impossible:
I’m going to love your bones,
I mean love your bones so they will know
that they’ve been loved, so your flesh
will simmer with jealousy, melt and merge
with your bones, be one with your bones
and know how cold your bones have been
without love. Are you ready? Can we do this?

It may not be easy, it may be that bones
remain without love for their own good,
it may be they can’t withstand
the pressures of love, the infectious heat
of love, it may be that bones can only make it
with the hard mouth of Death. Nevertheless
today I’m going to love your bones,
beginning, of course, with your flesh….

Natalie at the Lake, by leitmotifs

by Diane Lockward

Today I dress for you
in scarlet. I am
a tomato, plump
and luscious. I pulsate
with seeds.

Today I clothe myself
in yellow. I am
a peach, succulent
and ripe.

For you, I swathe myself
in gold. I am
all melons, oranges,
tangerines, nectarines.

I am a garden of earthly delights.

I am the red apple
you would fall for
a thousand times.

I am the apricot you would die for.

I am all strawberries,
blueberries, raspberries,
and cherries, all these and more.

Today I am royal for you.
I dress in a gown
of purple plum.

Come, lift me out of my skin.

by Linda Rodriguez

The problem with words of emotion
is how easily meaning drains
from their fiddle-sweet sounds
and they become empty instruments.
I can say love
and mean desire to give—
open-handed, open-hearted—
or I am drawn to the light
shining from your soul—
or my life is empty without you—
or I want to run my hands
and mouth down the length of you—
or all of these at once.

Need, now, is a plain word.
I need a nail to hang this picture.
I need money to pay my bills.
I need air and light,
water and food,
shelter from storm and sun and cold.
To be healthy,
to be sane,
to survive,
I need you.

by Jacques Prevert

An orange on the table  

Your dress on the rug

And you in my bed

Sweet present of the present

Cool of night

Warmth of my life.

–transalted from the French by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

My earliest, happiest memories are from summers spent at a lakeside cabin in central Wisconsin. My sister and I would waste away the days picking rocks and shells, drinking Tab from bright pink cans, and vying for the Coppertone towel we both loved. After lunch, we’d strategically align ourselves to face the sun, flipping over every half hour to make sure we were evenly bronzed.

We’d complain about the heat, but we’d stay outside on that pier until the sun went down and we were scared away by the bats skimming out across the water.

As a teenager, I had my first (and only) experience of topless sun-bathing. I picked an afternoon when no one else was home, I found a spot behind the garage where no one could see me, and I dared to bare it all. The whole adventure lasted probably twenty minutes – but I still remember how freeing it felt to be totally exposed to the sun’s gaze.

I still love that feeling of the sun heating my skin, making me blush. It’s amazing how something so far away touches me and changes me.

Perhaps that’s why I adore The Sun Lover by Julia Kasdorf:

The long afternoon after church
a girl lies on the lawn,
glazed thighs slightly parted,
fingers splayed like petals. At sixteen
she is a virgin. While her parents nap
in the quiet house, she knows
the sun is teaching her about love,
how it comes over your body
making every muscle go soft
in its pitiless gaze,

how it penetrates everything,
changing you into something dark
and radiant. She craves it,
knows it is everywhere like God’s love,
but difficult to find. She waits,
entirely still, trying to see her eyelids–
not lingering traces, but the lids themselves
luminous and red as the cheeks of the kid
who stuck a flashlight in his mouth at camp.
She squints so the tips of her lashes
flash like iridescent fish scales.

Every hour, she turns over but prefers
to face the sun. All her life
she’ll measure loves against this
gentle ravishing. She’ll spend afternoons
alone on crowded beaches, and at home
stand naked before mirrors, amazed
by the pale shape of her suit. She’ll touch
her cheekbones’ tingling pink, and nip
at her lover’s shoulders, as if
it were earth she were after.

by Thomas Moore

‘Twas a new feeling – something more
Than we had dared to own before,
Which then we hid not;
We saw it in each other’s eye,
And wished, in every half-breathed sigh,
To speak, but did not.

She felt my lips’ impassioned touch -
‘Twas the first time I dared so much,
And yet she chid not;
But whispered o’er my burning brow,
‘Oh, do you doubt I love you now?’
Sweet soul! I did not.

Warmly I felt her bosom thrill,
I pressed it closer, closer still,
Though gently bid not;
Till – oh! the world hath seldom heard
Of lovers, who so nearly erred,
And yet, who did not.

little tree
little silent Christmas tree
you are so little
you are more like a flower

who found you in the green forest
and were you very sorry to come away?
see i will comfort you
because you smell so sweetly

i will kiss your cool bark
and hug you safe and tight
just as your mother would,
only don’t be afraid

look     the spangles
that sleep all the year in a dark box
dreaming of being taken out and allowed to shine,
the balls the chains red and gold the fluffy threads,

put up your little arms
and i’ll give them all to you to hold
every finger shall have its ring
and there won’t be a single place dark or unhappy

then when you’re quite dressed
you’ll stand in the window for everyone to see
and how they’ll stare!
oh but you’ll be very proud

and my little sister and i will take hands
and looking up at our beautiful tree
we’ll dance and sing
“Noel Noel”

“little tree” by e.e. cummings, from 100 Selected Poems by e. e. cummings. © Grove Weidenfeld, 1959.

for Carol

I had seen them in the tree,
and heard they mate for life,
so I hung a bird feeder
and waited.
By the third day,
sparrows and purple finches
hovered and jockeyed
like a swarm of bees
fighting over one flower.
So I hung another feeder,
but the squabbling continued
and the seed spilled
like a shower
of tiny meteors
onto the ground
where starlings
had congregated,
and blue jays,
annoyed at the world,
disrupted everyone
except the mourning doves,
who ambled around
like plump old women
poking for the firmest
head of lettuce.

Then early one evening
they came,
the only ones?
she stood
on the periphery
of the small galaxy of seed;
he hopped
among the nuggets,
calmly chose
one seed at a time,
carried it to her,
placed it in her beak;
she, head tilted,
accepted it.
Then they fluffed,
hopped together,
did it all over again.

And filled with love,
I phoned to tell you,
over and over,
about each time
he celebrated
being there,
all alone,
with her.

“Cardinals” by John L. Stanizzi, from Ecstacy Among Ghosts.

Amphibious

by Erin Murphy

My daughter wants to take
a framed oil painting to school,

a nude with loose breasts and a belly
ripe as the full moon. Why? Because

we’re studying frogs, she says,
and it’s a frog. I cock my head

to consider the angle of the draped arm
but can’t get past the female form.

My daughter, though, is swimming
in amphibians, bringing home

scribbled pictures of tadpoles sprouting
splayed feet. At night, she sleeps

in the bedroom I painted pink,
her shelves lined with confectionary

teapots and cups. By day, she wants
to be her brother when she grows up.

Lately, she’s morphed into
a creature who’d rather squirm free

than be held. O, how we see what we
want to see. My daughter, looking at

a nude, sees a frog for show-n-tell.
I look at her and see myself.

“Amphibious” by Erin Murphy, from Dislocation and Other Theories. © Word Press, 2008. Reprinted with permission.