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it out, I flowed all over you

like wine, like oil, you touched the place where it hurt

at night we slept together in my big bed

your shoulder eased me towards dreams

when we met, I tell you

it was a birthday party, a funeral

it was a holy communion

between women, a Visitation

it was two old she-goats butting

and nuzzling each other in the smelly fold

Secret Lives

BARBARA RAS

The same moms that smear peanut butter on bread, sometimes tearing

the white center and patching it with a little spit,

the same moms who hold hair back from faces throwing up into bowls

and later sit with their kids at bedtime, never long enough at first,

and then inevitably overtime, grabbing on to a hand

as if they could win out against the pull on the other side,

the world’s spin and winds and tides,

all of it in cahoots with sex to pull the kid into another orbit,

these moms will go out, maybe in pairs, sometimes in groups,

and leave their kids with dads and fast food, something greasy

they eat with their fingers, later miniature golf, maybe a movie,

a walk with the dog in the dog park,

where one night a kid sees an old mutt riding in a stroller,

invalid, on its back, its paws up, cute like that, half begging, half swoon,

and this kid, who once told her mom she knew what dads did on poker nights—

“They’re guys, they’ll just deal the cards and quarrel”—

starts to wonder what moms do out together, whether they talk about their kids,

their little rosebuds, their little night-lights,

or are they talking about their bodies and what they did with them

in Portugal, Hawaii, the coast of France, it’s better than cards,

it’s anatomy and geography, they’re all over the map,

or maybe not talking but dancing—

to oldies? light rock? merengue? Would they dare dance

with men, with men in vests? in earmuffs? forget earmuffs!

top hats, younger men in sneakers who catch their eye from across the room.

Now they’re singing. Where have they kept the words to so many songs,

storing them up like secrets, hidden candy, the words melting in their mouths,

chocolate, caramels, taffy,

the next thing you know they’ll be drinking—or are they already

on to a third bottle, some unaffordable Nebbiolo

from the Piedmont, red wine named after the region’s fog

and aging into a hint of truffles.

Soon two of them will walk off together, laughing,

their mouths open too wide, their shoulders, no their whole bodies

shaking, the way a bear would laugh after it ate you,

heartily, remorselessly, they laugh all the way to the bathroom,

where together in the mirrors they try to keep a straight face

so they can put on lipstick the crimson of the sun sinking into the bay.

They blot their red mouths on tissues they toss

over their shoulders, leaving the impressions of their lips behind

on the floor for a tired woman in a gray dress who’ll lift them to the trash,

not noticing the moms’ lips, not wondering for even a heartbeat

if the kisses there meant hello or good-bye.

To Flush, My Dog

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

I

Loving friend, the gift of one

Who her own true faith has run

Through thy lower nature,

Be my benediction said

With my hand upon thy head,

Gentle fellow creature!

II

Like a lady’s ringlets brown,

Flow thy silken ears adown

Either side demurely

Of thy silver-suited breast,

Shining out from all the rest

Of thy body purely.

III

Darkly brown thy body is,

Till the sunshine striking this

Alchemize its dullness,

When the sleek curls manifold

Flash all over into gold,

With a burnished fullness.

IV

Underneath my stroking hand,

Startled eyes of hazel bland

Kindling, growing larger,

Up thou leapest with a spring,

Full of prank and curveting,

Leaping like a charger.

V

Leap! thy broad tail waves a light,

Leap! thy slender feet are bright,

Canopied in fringes;

Leap—those tasselled ears of thine

Flicker strangely, fair and fine,

Down their golden inches.

VI

Yet, my pretty, sportive friend,

Little is ’t to such an end

That I praise thy rareness!