By: Lara Merlin
Skin Deep
I know you only
as surface,
what touches me back
when I touch you.
You like the sound of that,
the play of your skin on mine
like the two legs of the cricket —
and I like sound,
rolling over me in waves.
Here, it’s all vibration,
the creaking springs, the breathing
and the restlessness.
We are plumbing vanity,
skimming the top of the pond,
kissing the mirror.
It’s clear already
there is nothing here for us.
For tonight, that’s enough.
Really, what’s between us
is mainly friction.
Some instinct,
like an insect love song,
keeps us up late into the night,
this heat hotter
than the summer air.
And we’d like it to go on —
the summer, the crickets and the night —
but we know it won’t.
Sound
There are many arguments for not
being wise,
and I like the sound of them.
Sometimes I let them fill my mouth, caress
them with the edge of my tongue
or taste them full in the hollow
of my throat.
You make me want to be reckless.
But you do not
make me forget all I know
(like a song I wrote myself)
by heart.
We could make each other feel
open wide and locked out
both.
I know what not to do
with you.
It’s not like I haven’t
before walked up to the door,
lightly run my fingertips
upon the knob,
and then walked away.
There are things that can be learned,
and I have learned.
But there are other things
you must make up
as you go along,
like a new song that lingers sometimes
along the curves of my lips,
or deep in the muscles of my thighs,
and other times runs ahead
of me.
up to the door —
a song full of the sound
of knocking.
Falling: Lilith to Adam
There have been many
men before,
but still, somehow,
you are the first man,
the only man,
the one with an open hand.
I have spent a lifetime waiting
for angels,
but remembering the look
in your eyes,
I would rather have a man.
Don’t you know already, joyfully
I would follow you
in and out
of any garden?
Your hold on me spins
me around
like a surprised moon.
I fold my wings
around me
against the rush of voices.
With a word,
I could again be off
skyward,
but I stay right here.
If you push me away now,
I fear I will become demon
to you,
mine the eyes
that follow you
in the dark.
Are you still afraid
of the fall
you know will come?
I can’t help you with that.
You’ll find your own way down.
But I can say what I know
of falling —
the taste of the wind,
the starlight
and the howl.
Gravity pulls
us all the way down.
O jubilance of fingers and bone —
smell of loam and leaf —
water cold and clear as ice, yet flowing.
Man, you are the forgetting of wings,
and here I go crashing
toward earth
with no thought of saving myself,
with no thought
but the thrill
and will you let me go on
falling into you?
Lara Merlin is an Assistant Professor of English at Vaughn College. She earned a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Rutgers University. Her academic research explores representations of the raced and gendered body in post-9/11 American literature and culture. She is also writing a magical realist first novel, from which this piece is excerpted. She plans as her next project to study the art of writing an amusing author bio. She is a member of the Sound Shore Writers' Group, and lives in Westchester with her partner and son.
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