Poem in the Manner of the 1960s

ISSUE: Spring 2012

Naked women are the best
You meet them in cornfields and meadows
They are naked and the moon is yellow
and it is summer with a bounty of apricots and plums
and then it is autumn and you meet them in the city
You meet the naked women in cafes
at parties or bars or art openings
Sometimes they wear sunglasses
Often they are smoking a cigarette and holding a cocktail
and there is a single ice cube in that cocktail
The naked women wear their hair in beehives
They like all-purpose black dresses
They take pride in how good they smell
And even when they are wearing their sleek black dress
and clutching their chic black pocketbook
you know they are the naked women you have dreamed of
since you were fourteen years old

David Lehman

David Lehman is the author of numerous collections of poetry including New and Selected Poems (Scribner, 2013), When a Woman Loves a Man (Scribner, 2005), and The Daily Mirror (Scribner, 2000). His latest book is Sinatra’s Century: One Hundred Notes on the Man and His World (HarperCollins, 2015). He is the series editor of Best American Poetry and edited The Oxford Book of American Poetry. He received the Deems Taylor Award from ASCAP for A Fine Romance: Jewish Songwriters, American Songs (Schocken, 2009). He teaches in the New School graduate writing program.