Monday, April 22, 2013

Laura Grodin- Two Poems

The Lover

He's back now.
Torn from an inside tendon, gripping
a muscle memory that is almost forgotten.
Foreign on tastebuds, hinting at a scent
that is wrong, but familiar. Feeling him
burns away fingertips.
There will be no evidence. Curling white roads
bring hands to pelvis, sliding down sweet;
a bone barricade protecting what is ours.
Knuckles burn like stair steps up my side,
protruding a cryptic message that only he
and I can read by neon light.
There is a streetlight in the distance, hovering under
his pitch-blue sky. I’m reduced to embers, poking at moments
we shared on my skin. When he left, the marks faded,
a reverberation of what used to be. My tail-bone echoed
as he passed, hollow from absence, simmering
on midnight air.



I Have the Sweeter Tooth

Dip a finger in salt, and it burns.
An assault of sorts, seeping into pores
so small they might not exist. Folds of skin
sewing themselves together, a fingerprint of dunes
driven bright. I have the sweeter tooth, I dip my finger
in fire, let it blaze a saccharine sweet, melting a glazed brown,
pasting the hands that used to be castle clean. Clear the crevices
of your mind where you know how sugar tastes, where you're sure
there’s a soul, where you balance the blast of burning blisters to flesh.




Laura Grodin is a recent graduate of Adelphi University's MFA Program in Creative Writing. A California native, Laura now resides in Brooklyn, NY. Her poetry can be found in Dreams and Nightmares, Rufous City Review, and Brevity Poetry Review.

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