~PAMELA GEMIN~

DESIRE

---

The word itself feminine—lacy net of zzz. 
Might serve as another word for black, black net
the better to catch me this day with nothing to do
but agonize and languish, not over the pint of ice cream
so much as these dips into you, desire,
till I’m not where I should be, washing a load of whites
or correcting papers. All else before you is small,
sweet emergency, don’t ask me where we are
or what we’re doing. Crisis in your eyes, your hands—
I can’t bear to remember your hands; I could eat them,
each finger a meal in itself, with a pint of ice cream. 
Won’t dare to imagine your neck, nor its prickly man-
scented, squared-off hairline; better the sudsy load
of towels, the In today’s society beginnings.
You and I step through these dream gates together,
each swinging door a monstrous, ornate D, into a town
without pity, a city of sinner-saints, city that never sleeps,
open all night and all the next day and Christmas
and oh, let go my hand; no, take it, take them both.
I can’t bear my empty hands, my empty
throat, my little town, my bed empty of you.

© by Pamela Gemin