and I’m the only woman. This is a school. I am 1/3 of a teaching team; me and two men: an educational threesome. So scandalous, even thinking it. The student body is 98% male. Tech college: all programmers. So I’m seeing an ex-student. Sure he’s younger, blond, freckled—but not a baby. Grown. Two adults. (Con)sensual. Male (age: 22). Female (age:25). When I say it that way, it doesn’t sound so obscene. Some (school-boy fantasy) porno. Such a naughty teacher. Although the first kiss didn’t come until well after he received final grades. I didn’t want to be that (woman they beat off to teacher) teacher. Although it’s impossible not to become her: as soon as I walk away, their eyes follow my flesh’s every movement. My lover (someone on the inside) told me. Not (all) the staff, but the students; the men—some staff, some ex-students—thought my unmarried co-worker was nailing me. Fuck it; who cares. Stares won’t slump my shoulders. Let them think it: am I wearing panties underneath this cotton dress?

At 4, I asked Mama as she washed me if
I could have the ruby ring flowering
diamond petals when she died.
Hushed, she scrubbed and said yes.

Could I have the ruby ring flowering
a blood drop, waved in sweet water?
Hushed, she scrubbed and said yes.
The thought of her ring,

a blood drop waved in sweet water:
the moment I became human.
The thought of her ring
is an anchor to

the moment I became human.
Remembering Mama’s mortality
is an anchor to
personal responsibility.

Remembering her mortality
as she scrubbed my breastless chest—her
personal responsibility—
she was surprised by her baby.

As she scrubbed my breastless chest, her
hands became her mother’s;
Mama’s surprised by her baby
when she tells the story.

Her hands became her mother’s:
the palm lines that tell our future.
When Mama tells the story
the patterns of my fingerprints are

the palm lines that tell our future.
If my hands become unfamiliar,
the patterns of my fingerprints are
lost, and the ruby is just a rock.

He touched me so much
I don’t know my own fingers.
For a few days, I like that he’s gone.
I haven’t soaked since he left.
Deep and oval, my tub is built for two.
When I sit between his legs,
my back against his chest,
we are a perfect fit.

A crinkled, floating hair
sneaks underneath my fingernail
and I’m reminded of his grazing fingers,
idling in thatches, lazing in the brush.
If I cut the grass my oasis will run dry
and the animals will go extinct.

I split at my fault line and burrow
to the center of the earth,
imagining he’s here:
wet dreadlocks like slugs
slide across my shoulders
as he turns his head to kiss
the other side of my neck;
no bites, no blood: thick kisses
made slick with orchid oil.
My slow sigh exhales his image,
fogging over the mirror.
I’ve drenched the empty
bathroom in his memory.
By the time he comes back,
it will have evaporated.

Life’s been beachy since babyhood; grew up in Hollywood, Florida, the ‘hood of sandy mangrove hands where bridalhood doesn’t beach well: the tan of frying pans beaches full belly bodies scathed on the kitchen-beach reef. A bridegroom spells doom at the beachfront ball: tall, tuxed, full of nuts—mansome, handsome, but bad at beach ball. Can’t play the game chain linked, gold-ring synced. A ball and chain is not a jolly volley; a name’s sent over the net: she accepts he but he won’t accept her so she’ll shatter to sand, her lineage lost at sea.

He said he loved me;
I laughed hysterically,
as if we lay in
a field of poppies instead
of indoors on floral sheets.

My twat is hot. My
pussy is cushy. My cunt
pulls stunts. My box plots.
My vertical smile spans
miles. My slit knows her shit.

–Noun

1. A prison bearing two X chromosomes in the hell nuclei and morally having a vagina, a uterus, and ovaries, and developing at puberty a relatively hounded body and enlarged beasts, and retaining a headless face; a gill or a woman.

2. An orgasm of the hex or sexual phrase that morally produces egg spells.

3. Botany. A pissed at plant.

–Adjective

4. of, penetrating through, or bullying a female animal or plant.

5. of, restraining to, or characteristic of a female prison; feminine: female suffering; female harmed.

6. Compost of females: a female citizenship.

7. Botany.

a. Indoctrinating or alienating to a plant or its reproductive sculpture that produces or contains elements requiring familiarization.

b. (of weed plants) pissed on.

8. Machinery. Being or craving a recessed heart into which a corresponding heart fits: a female plug. Impair MALE, (def. 5).

Law—woods—door—anchor—crafts—chair—corner—congress—blues—sea—states—show—watch—ax—auto—anti—clans—fire—repair—every—fresh—fisher—super—sales—lay—hang—gun—clergy—gentle—milk—kins—book—boogey—police—post—press—weather—work—water—drafts—funny—fore—oars—rafts—jazz—tax—trigger—garbage—grooms—minute—mad—delivery—free—earth—harvest—handy—helms—hench—trencher—noble—board—boats—bush—sand—ad—desk—pike—plow—wing—wise—ice—crew—cave—cavalry—quarry—yacht—tally—toll—town—trades—sound—spokes—sports—space—pivot—point—militia—middle—missile—lumber—junk—jury—money—marks—reins—plains—man.

Abbot and Costellos are a joke. Tits are sexy. Baby feeders are irreplaceable. Boulders are troublesome. Bosoms are sensitive. Celestial orbs are all-knowing. Knockers are demanding. Funbags are irresponsible. Isaac Newtons are dogmatic. Ying-yangs go with the flow. Chesticles are a mystery. The girls have passion. Mounds possess magic. Hood ornaments are distracting. Eye magnets are attractive. Melons make nectar. Bee stings are sore. Godzillas have egos. Tatas love attention. Cans doubt fumbling hands. Milk maids are choosey. Twin peaks mark the spot. Yahoos don’t have a clue. Cha-chas want to enjoy themselves. Lungs breathe. Breasts deserve respect.

My body bloomed the counterpart of two
souls, two Sicilians who met in America,
two musicians: a vocalist, a pianist; he
her voice instructor too promiscuous for a chaste
Catholic girl. She pined two years after
a man who fled to Florida from New York:
It must have been about 1972,
after Harvey Milk moved to San Francisco,
before Dade County refused to recognize
gay rights. 22 years late, Papa realized
his marriage to my mother wasn’t traditional.
Under cover, he’d leer at two men: hugging chests
pressed together like swollen genitals,
kissing tongues suctioned like two tentacles.