A wink or giggle—that hesitation—
Was fashionable, polite even, as it
Undressed from the neck downward.
Lust both generic and clinical,
Planted kisses on a practice dummy,
The Poet’s Anatomical Encyclopedia.
Bit by bit by bit by bit by bit by bit
With the mouth, mouthpiece of the soul.
Shoulders,
Arms,
Nipples,
Breasts.
[under there’s a secret sealed valve—
ligamentum arteriosum—a baby heart’s
short-circuit substitute for breathing
in the airless embraces of the belly]
Perfection non-specific (the naked not the nude)
Informs by feel and moans and hums
The checklist of the sex act.
Darling, darling,
Imagine what we see
Then dissect the rest.

Airport #3.
I silently raise my arms
letting her run the metal detector
up my legs
against my back
my breasts
her mouth taut, tingling.
I remove my shoes, belt, ring
I hand over my phone.
I even laugh with the men at Customs
as they unzip my luggage,
pulling out espresso cups I rolled in socks.
“What’s this?” one asks
groping my coffeemaker.
Earlier, at the second airport, they took my lip gloss, my perfume –
but it’s solid perfume –
and my deodorant.
The man behind the counter grinned
“Would you like to use it one last time?”
and smoothed his jacket.
Now, how many hours later,
there is …

Ruby red slippers, a key,
or the way to go home
plotted on a wrinkled map stuffed into the glove compartment,
desert roads twined through wilted towns.
At the counter, the woman’s eyebrows wince
as the oven air breezes through the door.
Her potato face and broken pot teeth
Twist in a smile.
The rattle of the air-conditioner sweeps out the door,
caught up in the wake.
She looks out the window, at the speeding car.
She tried to go home once, a long time ago,
after two years hard living in Reno.
But the wizard’s balloon deflated before she made it,
And she …