ISSUE: Summer 2001
The words “bright sunlight” are not
the same for single digit Fahrenheit
New York as for Southern California
where bright sunlight thrives
when it’s hazy. Long shadows
shove people’s motives, leafless tree tops
sliced by rooflines. We wear
the same masks, same memories
less lightly against cold.
A steam plume rises 1000 feet
to evaporate or fall but nothing snows,
empty hands full of mittens.
I don’t let tight, hard corsets
shove intestines around the heart
like great grandmas crippled,
who cared, a cross for beauty.
Bright sunlight, was it useful
how naked Hollywood could get,
or resented, bodies in clear pools?
A coat restrains a free gesture,
Isadora, Ruth. Bright helmet
sky polished, rings and color
bite faces. The words for light
cringe amidst death or chill
(let each human guess a self elsewhere)
nude desires, sun for bodies.
