Cheryl A. Rice

Rome

It’s a post-war city,
black and white, shadows
behind brick walls,
crumbling cement steps,
wood doors with loose handles,
hinges that stick.
My dreams are specific.
I land in a city suffering,
alleys, rows of stores
exhaling, some late century
glitter, identical blocks
I do and do not recognize.
I start out to find my way
back home, out-
discover I have left
my keys, wallet, ID
somewhere. But I
continue, thru a dark
sports bar, the game on
several screens
scattered high above the bar.
It is always night.
I do not necessarily feel unsafe,
but confused, lacking my bearings.
I sail more than walk
thru these settings,
come across You-tube celebrities,
obscure acquaintances.
The night is usually clear,
stars not helpful
to my navigation.

Sex

It would be simple to describe the act,
but I prefer details beyond the body-
a hair tie to close motel window shutters,
swapping our similar eyeglasses in morning’s early light.
We bang against each other,
two chipped flints of flesh,
a few sparks left to our middle ages,
refugees of every kind of
cockamamie romance.
Tin hearts, chicken griddled in an empty park,
my futon unfolded for your first sleepover,
never again to be dimmed
by our two lit hearts.

 

Belt

Hold up, let out, cut thru the air,
belts in my house did all sorts of things.
A favorite weapon for both parents 
when the Wiffle bat was missing
and bare hands weren’t enough.
Always black, always beaten itself,
I never suffered the ultimate thrill of
baring my behind.
We weren’t that kind of family.
It was saved for special occasions.

I had my own belts, too.
Before Jordache, Calvin Klein,
my mother sewed darts into
the waist of my jeans,
but a belt was still needed
to hold them up over newly
rounded hips, narrowing waist.
I favored elastic that waxed and waned
with my wavering proportions.
The buckle left marks in my belly,
too tight, too much sitting.

I avoid belts now as I can,
leather, elastic, or rope.
The only one I have is designed
to hook on either side of my fly,
no pressure, no perforations.
It would be barely a flicker
if used for discipline,
self-control my own concern,
psyche shaped as well as it will be.
I beat myself in a thousand other ways
invisible to my wardrobe.

 

Cheryl A. Rice is the author of Love’s Compass, My Minnesota Boyhood, and Moses Parts the Tulips. A Best of the Net nominee, Rice is also the host and founder of the now-defunct Sylvia Plath Bake-Off. dorothyy62@yahoo.com.