“This is because the caress is not
a simple stroking; it is a shaping.”
– Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
drinking into familiarity –
your orange raincoat…
teaspoons tickling the side of hope –
hopeful, let us
hypothesize in our unlit corner
of Fox’s Lounge, Route One
John Prine, Patsy Cline
sugar with despair
spilling lapsed time, timing
fingertips like frippery
your braid behind a teacup
ear listening to vintage chandeliers
like a desideratum
a language, South Miami typesets
| craving | Clevelander | aesthetics |
amid our city’s deco chords
let us be here in the aquafer
of humid desire the shape
of anonymity in a sibylline song –
the slyness of fox, the sadness of so long
Elizabeth S. Gunn (www.elizabethsgunn.com) serves as the Dean of the School of Arts, Sciences, and Business at Nevada State University. She writes poetry and fiction in Henderson, Nevada, where she and her wife live with their three rescue pups in the endless Mojave Desert.
Please note: Poetry is compressed to fit smart phone screens. If you are reading this poem on a phone screen, please turn your screen sideways to make sure that you are seeing correct line breaks for this poem.
THE CITY KEY 