Dinner
At Harris'
by Heather M. Raphael
You bring the matches
For our candlelight
I notice you
Smoke Camels
Lights
My type
Like you
Black hair
Silver barretts
Luscious voice
Like the food
You place in front of me.
I devour it.
The man sitting across from me
Lips moving
Saying something about Vaclav Havel
Playwright
Politics
In Czech
And I'm thinking about when I might pay
The check
Accidentally brush my hand
Against yours
Perhaps our eyes will meet
Linger.
We'll smile
And I'll listen for that nervous laughter
That bades me to ask for a cigarette
In hopes of conversation
So that I may watch your lips
Envision them pressed against mine
Glide my tongue down your neck
Over each breast
One by one
Sucking on hard nipples.
I wonder which is your lopsided one
Where your hairline starts
How you smell
"Do you need change?"
No. Thank you.
Leaving the restaurant
The man walking next to me
Saying something about Dale Earnhardt.
Driver.
Chevrolet.
In mechanical jargon.
----------------------------------------------
Sacrifice
by Jill
my stigmata
you complain,
but i accepted it.
A six-year old saint
still unaware of the implications.
I'd investigated
and concluded
How, god only knows,
but who was i to ask...
a mere girl-child
Resigned to a fate not quite clear.
After bath,
wondering why I didn't fall out of myself.
Only logic when I began to bleed.
Robbed of sancitity,
you've consigned my sacrifice
to the profane.
"Unclean,dear," you chortle
creating lines
boundaries--
your side and mine.
Some months later,
when I'm grown
I gather jars,
big clear ones,
and collect my blood
like so much sacred wine
pickled, poached, preserved.
Simple jam you'll pass
stored in the cellar months from now
"For the dry spell,"
I tell you,
and you accept this,
my word.
I smile at my own issue
benign, unlabeled,
imagining your toast
early in the morning
spread with jam.
I've boiled, stirred and skimmed
at the kitchen stove.
hands slick, hair sticky, and damp
bent over the steam.
I despise empty ritual, but
this one is full,
and i continue with a lust
you wouldnt believe
How long it's taken me to accept this,
years of pot-bellied tomatoes
vined at the slice and
flesh soft to the touch
eyes half shut to puree.
how long it's taken.