Above bare limbs of dark quaking aspens,
like ornaments, the stellar sparkles glimmered.
Beneath the trees a poet and, as happens
occasionally, a girl, lay and simmered
in young lust, an appetite all ages
have thought to be a beautiful folly,
a drive this very poet had spent pages
rhapsodizing over, being ‘melancholy,’
using a grander word, almost religious.
Now, none of that matters. Her waving legs
blot out the stars and the lacy, deciduous
canopy. He’s strong enough to juggle beer kegs,
if tapping her could be forgot, and she…
unsure if it’s the stars, the trees, or her
insides that quake, drinks it in. A banshee
scream or two, appreciative moans… for her
it’s not the words, but what’s said wordlessly.
At the moment, he doesn’t know his name;
because she didn’t ask, neither does she.
Your poet, who just barely overcame
his occupational prerogative
to lie about such uninspiring facts,
still sees those trees backlit so well. To give
a tree’s nickname to lovers maybe lacks
that true poetic touch, but ‘quakies’
gives to panting strangers a name of grace;
I think it fits us all, for I can’t shake these
images of people made of brown lace,
trembling on a dark hill, just holes and scars,
and shining through them, distant flickering stars.
© 2009 Edmund Pickett
(This poem may be copied or forwarded as long as
you retain the copyright notice and author’s name)