Premiere Generation Ink.


4.6.98

I.

The rain forced the
worms out of their homes
so they wouldn't drown

I walk by like
my own jesus
and listen to their bodies
squish today
brittle tomorrow
breaking underneath my
bones like a breakfast cereal
the sun is burning
the tar underneath my feet
and their dead bodies
look like chapped lips
on the dry pavement

II.

All I ever wanted was to be physical

like a belt that wraps around your waist
a clip that holds your hair into place
run my hands across your navel
and kiss the small of your back
but today there will be no communication
to force you down on the wooden bench next to me
so you can feel how too much sun can make you shiver,
and how too much loneliness
can make you open up
at all the wrong times

like a teenage girl
who was too scared to get wet
and not trust her boyfriend
but your lips aren't full yet,
they are small and honest,
they make me want to cry
and cut through these desks
like a tense hard movement
in between us
moist and shaking
my forearms are tired
from making love to you

III.

Her political agenda
was one big conflict of interest

I walk around campus
and I see the girls who
stand in groups of 3 or 4
like hookers
on the wall outside the mini mall
She plants all her weight
on the back of her right foot
and her legs form a triangle with the ground
so I start my stare
at her calf
run along her stocking to the her ass
and look up the bottom of her dress
until my eyes get tired
and then she turns around
interrupts me
like she wasn't trying
to draw attention
to herself
so I stare at her friend
who looks awkward in
her tight clothes
like her skin wants to breath
she is too jealous to be sexy
so she throws her eyes to the ground
and continues to talk like she hasn't seen me

IV.

The girl next to me at the bar plays pool
our conversations are short
usually don't even last a word

V.

When you sit down
I can see heaven
before your legs are crossed

I want to go
down
far down
on you
in you
inside your center of gravity
and move in and out of you
like the boyfriend who
would come and stop
and never come back
when you needed more of him inside you
but you lay still on my bed
with the window open
and a gentle breeze going
underneath your boxers and t shirt
and grasp for love like a child

VI.

I talk under my breath
to the trees and grass
because buddha told me
to understand them

I feel the sod under my finger tips
and this is how I make love to you
by sitting in the grass
and I wait to be separated
from myself
like light diffracted through a prism
The debris of fall
swirls around me like
a child trying to find its mother
and I wait for you
impatient as a child
to pay attention to me

VII.

Mid afternoon
The sun and moon
are competing for attention
in the sky

I sit down next to you
at the fountain
and I count how many times
you say "oh my god"
and I think to myself
if you weren't so pretty
I would shoot you
but you sit perfect
like a flower
that was just planted
that hasn't felt the wind or rain
and we talk until
the silence is as comfortable
as leaves wrestling each other on the ground


Yogesh Chawla

This poem is appearing in the Poetry Journal
Premiere Generation Ink. Volume 1 Number 1

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