Exquisite Corpse - A Journal of Letters and Life

Poems
by Rebecca Lu Kiernan
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THE MAN WHO REMEMBERED TOO MUCH

19 in braids and hot pants
I lived with a truck driver/
poet/Harrison Ford look-alike.
Dyslexic, he tickled me awake
to take down poems that
came to him in dreams.
We took our dinners to the
picnic table in the
gray-blue light of our
evening yard and basked
in the pending darkness
like geckoes in the sun.
He kissed the back of my
neck and rubbed my cherry
curls all over his face
and watched unblinkingly
as I dressed, undressed.
He remembered everything
I ever said and it got
so I had to be careful.
He had trained himself
to remember, as he could
not write things down.
I know where that house is.
Sometimes I think we could
dance there. His arms would
not forget me. We would eat
strawberries with whipping
cream in the claw footed
tub and wrap ourselves
in a marigold towel,
watch the bats fly
over the Gulf of Mexico
from the porch swing
and giggle, skipping into
our almond sleigh bed
and never notice the house
had been so efficiently
demolished, and never
remember the things
we can't forget.

WHEN POETS COLLIDE

In naked arabesque, I perch
on his mock marble balcony
with chewy feet and ass
stretching my nipples
between my cobalt fingernails
flicking my tongue against
the glass. Caught masturbating
he dives under an ivory coverlet,
emerging seconds later, shaking
his fists. "You trashed me in
a poem!" he barks. He stampedes
to the window and throws an
octopus paperweight, glass
explodes. I make a
sad puppy face and fog-kiss
the intact portion.
He rises for me
against his better judgement,
got to get him some of that
over the top--unfinching-
hutzpah. Two magicians,
how easily we move through
broken glass, oh, now
anything could get in through
that aperture, burglars,
pirates, mosquitoes. We can't
even ride that bed in peace,
but oh, the eye watering snort
of laughter, sweet hysteria,
the intoxicating whisper
of insanity when the night
carousel spins. I know, never
fuck anyone crazier than you,
but mmmmmmmm, aaaaah,
the first taste of flesh
at detente.

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