Sara Medinger
Centerfold

Legs the color of fish bellies
Roundly reflecting artificial light.
The short deep wrinkles
Piled up from her heels.
The dark hairs prickling over calves
Two days without a razor.
The shallow stretch marks waving,
Gleaming from her upper inner thighs.
The cellulite rippling over padded bottom.
Overgrown maidenhair tangled
Beneath the fine permanent
Underline of stomach. Faded nipples,
Limply pointed. Breasts maps of
Blue cobweb veins. Veins creeping
Up to skin surface. White and blue
Over hands and neck and pasty feet
Where parched skin perpetually flakes
From hard soles and parts exalted here.

Seven Pin Average

When he bowls he doesn't put his fingers in.
He holds it cupped like water in his hand.
The other night I watched him buzzed
And bowling with his bent writs
Supporting the bright orange sphere
Glowing in the black light. The crook
Of his elbow was the power in the fling.

He runs when he bowls, in this sketch of a dance,
Gains momentum to stop short at the line.
He wants that hollow thunder - the bursting
Formation. So on his left leg he hops
Up as the right leg flies back and the ball
Flied forth - shooting down the lane in a curve
Like the cradle it came from.

The Curve

Man comes in mostly lines
and angles.
But there's a curve I know,
a certain curve
where hip meets thigh,
that only curves so much
an man.
A curve deserving
a thousand tiny kisses
for every nerve.
This curve, this concave
curve of skin - hotter
than stomach, closer
than knees.
A shallow sunken
finger-walkable road,
This unnamed curve,
this slight and manly
gentle curve.
A most intimate curve,
caressable curve,
a shadow place for me to lie.
This curve forgets
all other angles.

Room in Brooklyn
                                   (after the painting by Edward Hoppper)

It defined the artistic expressions,
"the boredom of urban life" on the wall.

This dark haired woman by the window
in sunlit empty room either waiting,
daydreaming, or crying. Can't tell.
Can't see her face, only her sunlit
neck. Can't detect her shadowed
contemplation, penetrate heavy lids
through her back side. Maybe she's napping
instead of longing. But she's probably
longing.

What kind of longing
is it, lady, anything like mine?
It took me an hour to find myself
among the paintings in this place
undistracted by all the empty beauty,
the boredom of urban life, and the
noisy children on field trips. This
Room in Brooklyn could easily be
Milwaukee or Boston. My neck
could reflect all of sunset's light
like that if I wore my hair up
or cut it.

She's not preoccupied with
pondering the boredom of urban
life; she's overflowing with clichés:
a love, a longing, a distance, a passage
of time. Hers is a top floor window in
Brooklyn, waiting in an unrocking-chair
each bloody dusk for something to
come by. Waiting for something more
than art to come by and give her a good reason
to stand up.

<< Back to Issue 3, 2000