Iglesias, Holly

English

HELIN Digital Commons

A Reading

DigitalCommons@Providence

© Providence College  The author(s) permits users to copy, distribute, display, and perform this work under the following conditions: (1) the original author(s) must be given proper attribution; (2) this work may not be used for commercial purposes; (3) the users may not alter, transform, or build upon this work; (4) users must make the license terms of this work clearly known for any reuse or distribution of this work. Upon request, as holder of this work’s copyright, the author(s) may waive any or all of these conditions.  The Prose Poem: An International Journal is produced by The Berkeley Electronic Press (bepress) for the Providence College Digital Commons. http://digitalcommons.providence.edu/prosepoems/ THE PROSE POEM: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL  Volume 8 | 1999 A Reading Holly Iglesias  Holly Iglesias A READING The poet declares the body didactic; and I want yours, recalling the sight of a girl on a bike, calves pulsing on the incline, chest parallel to the road. Ah, child, for a bite of you! Eight years old, drenched in sweat and stealing away from me, the glee of misdeeds flushing your face. I want to hold you in my mouth, slick summer neck clamped between my teeth like a newly whelped pup; to know once again the flesh and bones of us before gravity gained momentum. When you were perfect—lash, tendon, toe—and I was just as new. These days, you assemble and re-arrange yourself as if parts were miss-ing; nails buried beneath acrylic confections one day pale as beer, the next like bruised plums. Your hair disappoints, your breasts a hazard, and you consider the knife and their reduction. Ach du, spit on those old, old boots. Retain what makes you matter, the dense pounds and lipid pints, the nerve bundles and your blunt, lovely teeth. Or release them to me for safekeeping. I, the failed Empress of Air, my body beginning its slide like layers of an over-iced cake. 

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A Reading

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