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Poetry from The Literary Review
STEVE KOWIT |
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On the patio of that little cafe in the Del Mar Plaza across from the Esmeralda Bookstore, where you can sit sipping latté & look out past the Pacific Coast Highway onto the ocean, a couple is tangled in one of those steamy, smoldering kisses. His right arm coils her waist, arching her back & drawing her toward him. He could be Sicilian, or Lebanese, with that gorgeous complexion, those chiseled forearms, that clutch of dark curls. The young woman's skirt, lilac & sheer, lifts as she stretches, levitated out of her sandals, out of her body, her head flung back, fingers wrapped in his curls. Her long chestnut hair spills toward her thighs as she clings to his mouth, to his loins, to his chest. How wickedly beautiful both of them are! To their left, off the North County coast, on an infinite sea, two sailboats triangulate heaven. In the sheen of the morning, you munch an apricot scone & sip your cafe latté, that blue cup of light at your lips, with its genie of steam. In its vase, on your table, a white tea rose shimmers. Your fork shines on its plate. Everything trembles & glows. ______ Note: "Kiss" is included in Steve Kowit's collection, The Dumbbell Nebula (Berkeley: The Roundhouse Press, 2000). |