Melissa Favara
NE
I.
Knots of wet shirts
on the porches of this
very last neighborhood
before the accordion collapse of houses
files us eyewhite to eyewhite,
thumb to spine:
there is a woman with eyes
like a good glove, there is
a man with a milkcow's face
sitting in the intersection among
his clean, fragrant sheets.
II.
Blurred portrait of body
as busted spool, or
spy for God, sprinkle sting
of wet tongue street, these houses
shouldered into their paint the
last language that will
remember itself.
It seems there is always
someone thoughtlessly paused
in the spiky streetlight pool
touching her face.
III.
There is a clot of wet shirts wrung
from a porch banister, a work
not done by hands. Windows lit
in other houses
comprise a voice
too low to kill
anything quickly, the skinned
lip of curb, & a child
out after dark, kicking it.
Melissa Favara lives in Portland, Oregon where she publishes Teen Sleuth, a 'zine of considerable wit. She has been previously published in h2so4 and The Columbia Poetry Review. She was also published in Gumball Poetry's Fall, 1999 issue, see her work here.
Email Melissa Favara at teensleuth@gumballpoetry.com (and ask for a copy of Teen Sleuth).
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