Kusai
Tobacco reeking
Hasn’t bathed in days
Scraggly ass guy
Sits down next to me
Puts his face in mine
“What’s that smell?”
Waving his hand
back and forth
in front of his fu man chu
Brown crooked finger
Pointing at me
“You stink”
Ignoring the smirk on my face “Kusai”
Hand keeps on flapping
“You must not speak Japanese”
Ignoring my,
“You’re the one who stinks”
In Japanese Ignoring the four or five others
Ignoring us
One hand fiddling with his zipper
The other still flapping about
“Your pussy stinks”
And then he gets up
and walks away
Sits down next
to some salary man Mumbling A stop later
Waltzes by one last time
“Kusai”
My stop,
I get off the train
His stench
Clinging to me
The Pain is Less When We Are Two to Carry it
Why do they call it losing your virginity anyway? Like you might become forgetful and misplace it, only to have it turn up later in some random bowl, discovered by your little brother along with the “marbles” your grandfather had lost? Me–I willfully discarded mine Got rid of it as soon as I could Liberated myself from it as if it were a curse–a stain Something dirty to rid oneself of at the first opportune moment And from then on, master of myself Nothing to protect Nothing to hide Free to play like one of the boys I did not lament being free of it.
Part of the “The Pain is Less When We Are Two to Carry It?” suite of poems.
It’s Complicated
You told me
that when we make love
I don’t open my legs
as wide as some of
the other girls
that you’ve known
that it seems
like
I don’t want
it
like it hurts
me
like
I’m afraid-
Like there’s no
pleasure
in it
for me–
Like I’m not
there
Well,
I do
want it But
it’s
complicated.
Part of the “The Pain is Less When We Are Two to Carry It?” suite of poems.
