TWO POEMS

by Audrey Johnson

 

 

 

GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN

 

This face, purely a mask,

           a face that anyone might have

           and someone does,

And the rest: the legs, the shoulders, the breasts -

Nothing like, but something like

           a rubber suit, a dream body

           that anyone might have

           and someone does,

But not me, although it is someone like me,

Without you touching me.

 

Without you touching me

My body curiously ceases to be alive -

At least from the outside.

Where before all follicles would stiffen

           at your approach, all pores open,

           all ice melting, all lips moistened,

           all at attention: all for one finger on, one breath near,

           one whisper that . . .

 

But from the inside, now,

The skin is a window through which I look.

In here, nobody belongs to anybody.

Here, when I look out

It is all interesting and curious

And purely, but not totally, irrelevant -

           Like you . . .

           Only, not like you.

 

 

THE GOPI’S RHAPSODY: IF, AFTER ALL THIS TIME…

 

If, after all this time

I suddenly meet you,

Is it possible to stop my hand from reaching out

To touch your body,

Can I remain upright while the sweet electricity

          short-circuits my urge to continue as before;

Will I not die as my heart melts instantly like a summer ice cube,

       disavowing cold and duration of cold,

As though there had never been winter.

As if there was only ever this lush hot unstoppable season

          of radiant loosening

          and rush of cellular commands:

          dilate, swell, flood, soften, harden, run, stay, run, stay . . .

As if there was a choice.

 

As if I could do anything but be there before you -

           breathless, full, exquisite, surrendered:

That you were hungry and I was food.  

 

 

 

AUDREY JOHNSON has been published in Creative States Quarterly, Zap Comix, Zoetrope All Story Extra, Drexel Online Journal, Painted Moon Review, Literary Potpourri, Muse Apprentice Guild, Cenotaph and Cenotaph Pocket Edition. Carve Magazine will feature her story “Verisimilitude” in January 2004. She recently moved to Oregon where she joins others in coffee rituals, and drinks water right from the tap.