Lisa Gordon

Duplicity


The step back to square one
just before you arrive
is not the same
as never having moved.

Today there is
rend & clash,
bent fortitude reaped
of holding two ideas
powerfully singular
like two thumbs
in separate holes
of a slipshod dam.

What you covet
is the possibility of leakage
even though it appears
you do everything in your power
not to let that happen.

It's a good thing you think
that those who care about you
can't see what
you're really up to.




Monogamy


The pandering after a clutch
that was the trigger, the found poem, the surprise -
bow-legged bravado & all that
hope for deep erotica shimmering - yes -
candles burning next to the radiator
melting wonky into flaming trees of good & evil
& the love on the wood floor
a shoehorn splinter of
love - man/woman -
mortally seeming last chance though
really not.

The woman's later kisses are a murmur of ecstatic condolences.
The man, prettily alive, strokes shoulders & falls summer-thriving
asleep.

*

You'd keep him if you could you think
at the same time not even believing yourself.

More correctly
you'd keep, if you could,
the self that you become here
lying all there next to him.

This has nothing to do
with committing
emotional fraud.

*

Years later in one of those dreams
where all the players have the wrong names, wrong faces

you recognize his hand holding a tea pot from Tibet
extending out of the sleeve of a homeless woman
who hasn't allowed touching
in a decade.

You have the most intense urge to kiss her,
drink the limp green tea
straight from the spout
spent leaves & all.



Lisa Gordon: I'm a schizophrenic, but a lucky one, meaning my pills work at least for now, I have strong love in my life, I can function, I've mostly learned to deal. As far as writing goes: Well I always loved something that Margaret Atwood said many years ago when she was asked why she wrote. Her answer: Why doesn't everybody? Yes, that is it - natural as drawing breath, & everybody knows how difficult that can get at times, at the very very least metaphorically speaking.



Anders Lisa Gordon Jan Savanyu Joel Fry Tom Bell Jerry Hicks Kenny A. Chaffin Danny P. Barbare