Cathleen Calbert

Sleeping with a Famous Poet


Then I sat up in bed, letting the light
of the motel sign hit my breasts.

I hoped he’d see them in neon
and be moved to write again.

He just slept, so I unpacked his things:
plastic razors, pens, and ex-wife smiling.

I wished I could get a shot of him—
cock soft as butter, celebrated face

withered in sleep—but I didn’t think
to bring my camera. Instead, I took

the books he had to sell and made
a halo around his head. I signed a few,

With Love and Gratitude, Yours Truly.
Landscaping gray trees on his chest,

I noticed his uneven breathing.
I thought this might be his death scene,

but he woke up, startling both of us,
and seized my blinking, green hands.

Afterwards


Eiffel Tower,
Statue of Liberty,
Skyscraper piercing

The blue diaphragm
Of heaven? No, we’re talking
Tomato fruitworm,

Watered silk,
Soldier at ease.
Tom Thumb won’t stand

For the military-industrial complex.
He has no religion.
As far as politics,

He can go either way.
He’s nonpartisan,
Californian.

Curled inside a nest of curls,
Dreaming of childhood,
Zen indifference,

He sings the one
Simple song he can:
Never Again, Never Again.

Sleeping with a Ghost


Water flooded the seaman’s lungs as he fell
to his knees on the beach. They kissed,

then lived swimmingly on coconuts and eggs,
but each day the lady’s fingers drummed

on the skin above the bones above his heart
until he left his flesh and said, I’m sorry.

My hands are useless. She worked with this,
erecting small altars, like sugared rosettes,

to lost love and lighting up their palm-tree hut
with the melodrama of Catholic candles.

She didn’t know she was sleeping with a ghost,
licking the invisible and opening her legs

to the air as sand formed stars on her back.
She murmured to the memory of his ear

how the one who was saved was her savior.
She didn’t know she was living alone

until the tide rose, the moon rolled away,
his ship surfaced and skittered out to sea.