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to the side of the bottle.

We kept thinking we would see

the gap narrow, though in fact it persisted.

The more stubbornly it persisted,

the more fiercely we believed.

Summer at the Beach

LOUISE GLÜCK

Before we started camp, we went to the beach.

Long days, before the sun was dangerous.

My sister lay on her stomach, reading mysteries.

I sat in the sand, watching the water.

You could use the sand to cover

parts of your body that you didn’t like.

I covered my feet, to make my legs longer;

the sand climbed over my ankles.

I looked down at my body, away from the water.

I was what the magazines told me to be:

coltish. I was a frozen colt.

My sister didn’t bother with these adjustments.

When I told her to cover her feet, she tried a few times,

but she got bored; she didn’t have enough willpower

to sustain a deception.

I watched the sea; I listened to the other families.

Babies everywhere: what went on in their heads?

I couldn’t imagine myself as a baby;

I couldn’t picture myself not thinking.

I couldn’t imagine myself as an adult either.

They all had terrible bodies: lax, oily, completely

committed to being male and female.

The days were all the same.

When it rained, we stayed home.

When the sun shone, we went to the beach with my mother.

My sister lay on her stomach, reading her mysteries.

I sat with my legs arranged to resemble

what I saw in my head, what I believed was my true self.

Because it was true: when I didn’t move I was perfect.

Girlfriends

ELLEN DORÉ WATSON

First and last, mirrors

whose secrets we keep in a home-made petrie dish

(sometimes they give us ideas)

I mean the ones who say the unwelcome when it matters

whose kids watch us for clues

whose kids we watch for clues

Not the ones who decided there was too much too true

of them in our eyes, and ran,

but the ones who’ll be around to see us bald or one-breasted

and we them

who’ll know to say what can’t be said (with their skin)

whose bodies, spreading or starved, we love

whose husbands (or lack of) it’s okay to disapprove, or almost covet

whose girlfriends are ours by proxy

who share these assumptions and would their last

Godiva, valium, amulet

The lifers

who, even seven states away, are the porches

where we land

My Friend’s Divorce

NAOMI SHIHAB NYE

I want her

To dig up

every plant

in her garden,

the pansies, the penta,

roses, rununculas,

thyme and the lilies,

the thing

nobody knows the name of,

unwind the morning glories

from the wire windows

of the fence,

take the blooming

and the almost-blooming

and the dormant,

especially the dormant,

and then

and then

plant them in her new yard

on the other side

of town

and see how

they breathe!

Chocolate

RITA DOVE

Velvet fruit, exquisite square

I hold up to sniff

between finger and thumb—

how you numb me

With your rich attentions!

If I don’t eat you quickly,

you’ll melt in my palm.

Pleasure seeker, if I let you

you’d liquefy everywhere.

Knotted smoke, dark punch

of earth and night and leaf,

for a taste of you

any woman would gladly

crumble to ruin.

Enough chatter: I am ready

to fall in love!

Magnificat

MICHÈLE ROBERTS

For Sian, after thirteen years

oh this man

what a meal he made of me

how he chewed and gobbled and sucked

in the end he spat me all out

you arrived on the dot, in the nick

of time, with your red curls flying

I was about to slip down the sink like grease

I nearly collapsed, I almost

wiped myself out like a stain

I called for you, and you came, you voyaged

fierce as a small archangel with swords and breasts

you declared the birth of a new life

in my kitchen there was an annunciation

and I was still, awed by your hair’s glory

you commanded me to sing of my redemption

oh my friend, how

you were mother for me, and how

I could let myself lean on you

comfortable as an old cloth, familiar as enamel saucepans

I was a child again, pyjamaed

in winceyette, my hair plaited, and you

listened, you soothed me like cakes and milk

you