Moroff, Diane

English

University of Montana

CutBank Volume 1 Issue 57 CutBank 57 Article 7 Spring 2002 Two Women Drinking Coffee Diane Moroff Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umt.edu/cutbank  Part of the Creative Writing Commons Let us know how access to this document benefits you. Recommended Citation Moroff, Diane (2002) "Two Women Drinking Coffee," CutBank: Vol. 1 : Iss. 57 , Article 7. Available at: https://scholarworks.umt.edu/cutbank/vol1/iss57/7 This Poetry is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks at University of Montana. It has been accepted for inclusion in CutBank by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks at University of Montana. For more information, please contact scholarworks@mso.umt.edu. Diane M oroffTwo W o m e n  D r i n k i n g  C o f f e eThough eye to mouth’s the usual link, a yen for the lemons or liquor on Vuillard’s table, this time it’s eyes to fingers, which tickle and need a good rub; he wants to touch to see if touch will turn a line of lime-green (the hem of linen patting a woman’s knee), to a memory of rabbits in a field from the story his daughter pemied like a fence on her bedroom wall, which he can’t understand how he’s forgotten, and knows he should rememberSleepy in the room’s flush humidity, a younger woman forgets herself and tips forward as if to press glass against canvas with enough pressure to unleash any moisture still in the desert oils; then it’s rimy recollection of a game of Statues; when they spun each other in the green light of early evening into whatever they wanted to be—ferry-captain or fire-eater, say—though the real labor was to resist bath and bed of grass growing dark, easy in their ignorance of this first fall to shapes their lives might fail to keepBut with few failures left, a man old before anything else, and dressed politely in his brown suit for strangers who part the sidewalk, is grateful he can’t touch as the painting startles this morning; through spotted and soiled glasses, he sees what he missed last time: the arousing curve of his girlfriend’s backside, a three-quarter view in muted collage for bone sunk beneath a perfect wave of fat, beneath the only skin on her body un-ffeckled, and almost green, like the green in flesh that painters seeOlive green for the guard, so it’s the flesh and oil of fruit he imagines Vuillard has turned to wallpaper, and the women’s frocks are mustard, beer-bitter, and coarse at their edges; every day he nibbles at what the painter has left, reaches for the bowl of sweet coffee haunting table and toast, stews over meddlers elsewhere in the house, and listens to the women’s languor. And just before closing,he does what no one else can: warbles hush little ladies, then kisses their fat, sad cheeks a very saucy goodnight..Spring 2002 23

Two Women Drinking Coffee

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Two Women Drinking Coffee

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