Two Poems
by
Jill Hoffman
NUDISTS
This anniversary of salt
we boiled out of an ocean of fire
for twelve years in a tub
as if we would not die if we did not die drowning
(and I smelled the fresh grass
in the pantries of air!)
has lain bare that you are thinking
of duty and I of
flies copulating in the pandemonium
on a beach that has known all kinds.
LATE AUGUST
Most cunning lover of herself whispering
into the boudoir of her ear
I lay you to rest in a dusty couch
and get me your sister
whose brown forehead is grooved with the. tracks
of the patrolling jeep. The rocker flies off the porch:
her interrupted nights open the bureau draw rs spewing
smalls
in a corner, where her friend sits who is like a bride
in a canopy bed
watching the machinations of her mourners
fornicate on her tray, with the groom
who has the mien of a butler, carrying over his arm
waves in a blizzard
when, on the last morning, all the green girls wear veils.
