when your shoulder becomes the arms of a willow, branches hiding grass shadows when your collar becomes a cloud, a conundrum, a cauldron that clenches below your face when you keep sadness below folded hands like an insect you do not wish to escape when secrets from your past rise like water lapping, lapping at your waist when shoe buckles turn to stones, when you stand in a murky world you won’t find the truth sitting in a chair peering at you from beneath wicker legs he’ll be waiting for you there in an alley, he’ll be grinning from behind a desk, he’ll laugh at you in the locker room where you won’t hear, he’ll put his hand on your thigh, your knee, your neck he’ll slide like a fish between your legs when you are least expecting it december Vol. 30.1
Poems by Judy Kaber