Love pulled me out of myself the way a cook eviscerates a chicken.
Cut me open and you will find his fingers.

Your mouth is a honeyed shape of air.
Hand me a knife. I will slice an apple to dip in it.

You comb my hair desiring more tangles.
Then we stand in the wind together and hold hands.

Sometimes I submit to the truth
hoping it is merciful.

When a lover leaves you
you say Thank you

then wipe your mouth with the next day's napkin,
erase help and sleep from the blackboard.

The old corrupter rises again to defend himself
before the young and the living.

In ruins the sky will pose with clouds
and a tree in the rose window.

The body of one should depart for the body of the other,
but some ghosts would like to stop at walls.

For a few months I turned away from the mirror.
Now I cannot look back.

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Lynn Levin's most recent collection of poems, Imaginarium (Loonfeather Press), was a finalist for ForeWord Magazine's 2005 Book of the Year Award. Her poems have appeared in Boulevard, Hunger Mountain, Margie, Many Mountains Moving, on Garrison Keillor's show, The Writer's Almanac, and many other places. She teaches at the University of Pennsylvania and at Drexel University, where she is also the executive producer of the cable TV show, The Drexel InterView.
 

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summer 2007 | kaleidowhirl
books and chapbooks from authors in this issue