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Embrace
Poems by Bruce Lader
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Excerpts
Quiet Room
A student takes frequent timeouts
from punching his calculator,
slurps a giant cup of ice cubes,
rattles them around in swirls,
chomps them like taco chips.
Two girls wearing clogs clop in.
One swooshes the tab off a pop can,
begins to cry, If he loves me,
why doesn’t he tell me?
The friend balloons a pink bubble,
crackles it like cellophane,
unzips and rummages every
compartment in the backpack,
pulls out lotion that announces perfume,
a brush to give Rapunzel tresses
endless strokes. Words don’t mean
as much as doing, she soothes.
Showing means he really loves you.
To My Favorite Mistress
Let me show you my winter
warmer than the spring of others.
Even in a blizzard,
unfolding the fire of glowing words,
these journeyed hands
can sway the hot-cocoa
earthiness under your skin to blossom.
A season of freezing rain
can’t dim the filaments of music
in sun-fused fingers tingling
to touch you. Let my eyes feast
on the nectar of your fruitful glance,
tongue taste the mint leaves
of your mouth. I will tattoo you
with the liquor of roses,
show you how we can swim—
a pair of dolphins.
Yoga Companion
She waits hours in a cloak of night,
waits for my aging bones
to slowly slouch on the carpet,
stretch the way she does,
arch drowsiness out of spine
the way a tiger leans, prepares to stalk.
As I become a cobra, hood raising,
lowering, she slips under the bridge,
rolls on her back, displays chest
and belly white as blackberry flowers.
When I try to bend the kinks
out of knees, nearly touch toes
she licks a hand, taps a white paw
against my shin as I flex stiff shoulders,
swivel from hip, loosen leg joints.
She knows I know what she wants
more than anything besides canned food
and sleep. If I were her size
and she mine, would she devour
or look after me, still stare with those
mustard eyes persistent about a belly-rub?
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