By: Samara Landau
sit on your kitchen counter
adjacent to your mother and me
as we sit and talk and pretend
that when she leaves the room,
I will not lean over the ceramic bowl,
reach for you
and kiss you with a power
she would not expect, with the same
lips that passively eat her green grapes.
It is a comfort
for her, I think,
to know that this
fruit in the bowl
will occupy her teeth
and her tongue to keep her
from asking me with curious,
confused eyes what love and sex
look like to me, to you.
She will never ask.
A relief to her, the knowing,
that upon returning to this table,
the bowl will be refilled.
But, she cannot hide what
the green grapes do for her.
Without them,
she would have nothing
to distract her desire.
Funny, though,
what I see,
when we both reach for the bowl:
the circular flesh of each grape’s body
on the stem is so clear to me.
She plucks one.
I see the juice drip from her lips
the slow tilt of her neck
the easing of her shoulders
the flux of her lids
the praise she awards each bite with
an accomplished— mmmmm
I place a grape between
my teeth taking the time
to skim the skin until
my molars bite into
the fruit, my tongue
twirling into
the pulp of the grape
so that my mouth
is too full to ask her:
How come then,
you cannot understand
why I love a woman?
Samara Landau is a senior at Skidmore College studying psychology, neuroscience and poetry. Her work will also be published in Beyond Words Magazine. She is currently working on a few projects including editing an LGBTQ+ anthology and a literary journal featuring college students. When she’s not writing, she’s watercoloring or rock climbing. She is now splitting her time between New Jersey and upstate New York.