POETRY

Finally got the chance to edit this old poem...

amidst all the craziness, I always end up in a cab

I. Odessa

Lime tongues dance together,

salt bitters the edges;

we savor regret stinging

the back of our senses,

Oolya and I that is,

she was my Ukrainian lover

for ten whole days,

her code for sex was—

Let’s watch a movie,

we become salmon

dancing on vibrato,

cut open down the chest

with the sharp of our nails,

just to stay close,

sand and sea close,

we ride a wave together in the club,

my stiff pants against her wet skirt,

till the sun bursts blood orange

down the center, it’s

5:00am,

the death march up to the parking lot

is a pit stain and spaghetti legs,

she stops to hear a mandolin,

pizzicato,

dusty fingers beg

for rubles in an old fedora,

Let’s get out of here, I say anxiously,

she won’t have it, the melody

reminisces her childhood,

feeling cradled, the warmth

of its transcendent tune,

rain wets her blouse

and it hits me like a Jackson Pollock—

we haggle a cab driver with the remains

of our excess, lie draped over each other

the entire sickly jarring way,

till we climb up our doorstep—

She gives me her 32-caliber smile.

II. New York

I Saturday stumble into bed,

the night as clear as my childhood,

my phone vibrates, it’s Abby,

Hey, Margaret and I just drank a bottle

of wine, come over—

I open the squealing kitchen window,

my toes sweat, stepping onto the fire escape

I taste wet flour within my skin,

I feel like superman, I howl,

I hail a cab, no wait— I flag down

a cab, this ain’t Reichstag,

those worn out leather seats

dream floating space cats,

I peer between slits onto bending

streetlamps whispering soft allegories,

my snowcovered body seeps back amid—

where’smyphone? and spare change,

the cab halts,

That’ll be $22.50,

I don’t remember

paying,

I scramble up endless winding stairs,

rolling along blank walls, reaching

a tiger-clawed door,

Abby answers, grinning like a murderer,

we walk into her room, a candle of castles—

Margaret’s on the bed, sipping Cabernet,

midriff showing, smiling wildly,

Soooooooo what' are we going to do? I pose,

we’re on the bed, rolling sex dice,

the snow is a window frame

of naked flesh and spilled wine.