Three Poems

The Worst Part

[wpaudio url=”/audio/6_8/Cortese1.mp3″ text=”listen to this poem” dl=”0″]

isn’t the hard car hood,
the wrist burns

you wear home.
The worst part is the dream

that he comes in
while you’re watching TV

with your folks, tells them
I fucked her good.

When you can’t sleep
you creep downstairs,

a blank blue unfeeling
amid Oreos, chocolate

chip ice cream, last
slice of pizza in the box.

Your body fills
with snowy flesh-

sexless as a field.

Fucking

[wpaudio url=”/audio/6_8/Cortese2.mp3″ text=”listen to this poem” dl=”0″]

Light creeps in on red paws,
crawls onto our backs.
We pant until morning, salt-
encrusted, and fall asleep dreaming
of burnt trees.

Fistful of Tulips

[wpaudio url=”/audio/6_8/Cortese3.mp3″ text=”listen to this poem” dl=”0″]

I wanted men to pick me
fistfuls of tulips, clasp my waist hard

as if clinging could save them.
To kiss till we come

unhooked, bone by bone.
I won’t lie to you-

it was simple. I sat at a table
in the corner, sipped vodka,

crossed my stilettos in prayer.
A man with lines around his eyes

and a bulge below his flannel
gazed at me. I gazed back,

which meant yes.
Headlights chased each other

along the walls of the motel.
Scraggly trees surrounded the lot.

Without flicking the light
he pushed me onto the bed-

we sped past pleasure, past pain.
Windchimes and cicadas

and a leaf tip scraping the window
made a kind of music.