Confession & Elmhurst Woods, Pennsylvania
by Margot Douaihy
[ poetry - july 06 ]
Confession
I loved kissing you
through the shower curtain.
You looked beautiful and dead
like Laura Palmer
when the fisherman
found her - naked, wet,
wrapped in plastic.
Your eyes were slippery,
see-through as scales,
your lips were purple.
It’s a morbid thought, I know,
but not as insane as the idea
that we’ll never
shower together again.
Elmhurst Woods, Pennsylvania
I shouldn’t have let him drive - the guy
lurking near the keg all night like a garden gnome -
but I'm too tired to argue.
In the back seat Kathy’s asleep
with her head in my lap. Tonight
we split a case of beer between us
and when her boyfriend left
she grabbed my wrist and whispered
she could never love him
but it’s better than being alone.
It’s dark. The woods swallow light,
hold it in, like drawing someone’s breath
into your mouth.
I want to touch her throat,
smell smoke in her hair.
We move so fast we float.
Maybe the gnome isn’t even driving
and it’s the fog carrying us through trees
like leaves sewn into a gale.
