archives.

Exhibit Placard

She sits alone on a corner bench,

same spot each week. The museum teems

even on Mondays. The corridors pump,

pump like atria. Closing her eyes, she stirs

in one-sided exchanges with her closest

strangers.

She breathes in your company. The echoed squawk

of infants, the clack-clack-clack of heels arouse

her ears. The fathers’ and husbands’ voices vibrate

within her scant, sapless body.

Sunset Alice

A good twenty-five years my senior,

Alice glimmers, splashing up

from the pond. Her body, like the stretch

of light before sunset, is the mercy

my plagued, unsettled, twelve year-old

body so ruthlessly begs for.

I’m hidden beneath the blotchy blanket

of water ten feet from the dock

she dives from; bursting to wrap my fumbling,

child arms around her, to feel the slim

sag of her breasts against my chest

and kiss her for days. Alice should be

aware of all this, and she donates

only the gift of a mental snapshot

I’ll pin above the heads of future

lovers, a silt-stained souvenir.