22 Outiin the-Mo»untains. April 2000: —

 

Forest Entomology

These and still more—15 separate orders,

and her professor wants them labeled, positioned
taxonomically, winged insects pinned so that
one wing folds up, one fans out,

the bloodless veins like fissures on their tissue.

She bends to her collection, commander

of an army of corpses, Latin names

typed in 4 point font, like paper stones beneath
bodies that hover an inch from the board,
suspended in a black vinyl case that says
“Fragile———Insects—This side up.”

On her dresser, the vials of glycerol mingle

with a picture of her mother, 20 years younger

and grinning. The glass tubes contain larvae, floating

in the poison, unsmiling, motionless, bug eyes popping
from their wet forrnless heads. Beneath them, her folded
clothes, still moist from the dryer, breathe their dampness
into the wood. ' '

I wake up at one am and she’s still at it, sticking

those crispy specimans in place, a ghostly phalanx,

their shadows thrown across the box by the light at the foot
of our bed. Her eyes through her glasses are intent

on those miniscule anatomies. I imagine she is mentally listing
the parts—thorax, metathorax, mandible, tarsus, memorizing
each joint and limb. The killing jar idles in her bag, buried
beneath ziplocks, books, used hankies, loose change.

This is too much like a dream.

My foot breaks free of theblankets

and rubs the skin at the small of her back.

She raises her head, discovers my eyes,

open, cloudy, sticky with sleep,

She lowersa hardened beetle and closes the box.
She puts it aside. She turns out the light.

The room shrinks to a darkened corner.

I take a breath, let my chest deflate; it settles
into my ribs. She shifts her hips, and I sense

her face drift into the space above me, ‘hear

the faint high—pitched whistle of her breath

as it circulates through her body, her lungs,

the moist cartilagenous tubes in her chest.

She lowers her head. Her eyelashes flutter against
my cheeks. I slip my arms around her chest

and drag her down.

Cathy Resmer

You’re Invited to the presentation of
awards and winners’ readings.

April 15 at 2 pm

Chateau at Middlebury College

editor@mountainpridemedia.arg
or 434-6486    

From Our Judges

Sex is not sex

alone, till friend

or lover, wife, or sudden girl

triggers the hammer always on a poise
for love to gush and trigger the whole man
sex is not love; or till

a book or poem or music turns the key

or class '

platonic surface rippling underneath

with currents never spent

except in violent spurtings of ideas

sex is not love;

or till the traveling pen

knits on a notebook’s narrow page

the weft of language from the unseen skein
collected, stored in the complex machine
sex is not love:

inseparable pair

unsatisfied with singleness

sex feeds out love, requires a second base
friend, lover, wife, girl

class, book, poem, a means

. twist by untwisting, wind unwinding,

to bring the inside out, the outside in,

liberate with chains, creating worlds

in worlds, each centered in the center of the man whose epicenter travels
naturally as wind or sunshine

starlight or summer rain

refreshing the parched landscape of his life

, with lavish grants of love whose wonder is
~ the sooner given, sooner stored to give

Lyle Glazier I
Istanbul
Hitit Pension

Tues. Apr. 28, 1970

Outside the Key
(for Clutch)

The duller players dribble in and under

the net, but not number 10, the thin wisp

of glory who stands outside the key

and shoots three—pointers as easy as kids
spitting seeds from their watermelon.
There,s that joy they share: heads tilted back
to follow the long—arced trajectory,

the satisfied grin on the hit.

At his last basket the crowd stands and shouts
“Swish,” both his trademark and nickname,
not so much for the net, still shivering

from the touch of the ball, but for a shyness
he doesn’t explain in the showers

and locker room, his avoidance

of post»basket butt—slapping

and courtside pats on the back.

After the win, after the last stinging

towel has unraveled in the changing room, I
number 10 breaks away from the team

to celebrate. In a rented room, his boyfriend
watches him lift on his toes, left arm

extended to mimic the clincher. The replay
complete, he stands there all naked and smiles.
His lover makes a hoop with his arms,

an empty embrace his star player

deftly steps forward to fill.

Hugh Coyle