Of the First Girl
In the momentum of limbs and leaves, plane trees line a street: a table in shade.
Doubt's barrage, sotto voce. Such vanishments leave a singular grace. Sweetened tea, chimney smoke, emptied arms.
Surely a kiss, desire kindling along her thighs, suffices. Erasure adopts arrogance, laughs at her dis-ease.
A narration against which she offers a half-silvered mirror. Guises and veils no remediation.
Will you tender your lips to the base of her throat? She preferred the trade in silks, even piracy, to this.
A preponderance of authorities she is subject to, the topography of confession. Balm of Omani peaches and chamomile, sweet-scented myrtle.
Renegade memory, or dream. A bowl of Chinese elm, amber and round, awaits them.
ﺵ
Will you follow her? A cup of wine, Othmani quince.
Fountain playing the air: lavosh, fresh cheese, ground herbs. Delight's paradox.
The discourses of pleasure figure her. Ripe fruit and heady wine. The honeyed crescents of her sex.
Hers—reminiscence of autonomous exploit, ship sailing into wreck and redemption.
What use kisses, choosing her own solution. Unfixed, she composes a movable singularity.
ﺵ
Of violets, musk-flavored sweetmeats, anemones? Not even honey tarts nor the shimmering of a golden dome in the night. She buys another's life.
A girl among three girls. Sisters.
Anodyne to betrayal.
A place in the mouth
What do you remember?
A correspondence, a cipher. A silhouette. Our faith in the text absolute.
She can not remember, though her smile waits obliquely amid the calligraphy. I am trying not to doubt.
A girl, her skin glowing. Its letters damaged. In that moonlight?
Desire fills our mouths, unbearable the revelation of lack.
Such surrender only complicates the narrative. How is it she manages to vanish, only later to reappear?
She picks up a brush, addressing the page. An absence, really, waiting there. Will you meet her?
The saffron taste of her skin. Your saffron mouth.
Her story eludes us though the invitation remains open, rubbing the tips of her hair between our fingers.
A silk chemise, a twist of black hair. Her gaze falls between the gaps fashioned by palimpsest. Or loss.
The correspondence between us nearly complete, the narrative insinuates itself along your lips. What you lack or remember. The dark silhouette of her reach.
Page and mirror. A recollection: sites of investigation we are helpless to resist. Her mouth refusing our performance.
She travels on a current of longing that is not her own, but ours. Or is it hers.
What do you think you remember?
The Youngest Sister
Silk rustles over silk. Hers, an order of amenity.
A basket obliges the necessary forms of enumeration. Pistachios, raisons, almonds. Grief's tears.
A tray of every kind. The primary phenomenon.
Of Zainab's combs, honey tarts, rose-scented kataif? A question of numbers, what we see as luminous.
The porter carries us with him, past gold letters, ebony doors. An alabaster couch recalls buttercup, sesame, the Inn of Abu Mansoor.
What displeases you wrings his heart.
ﺵ
There is no such thing as phenomenology, its catalog of hurts or the impression these make on us.
Her lute washes her sister's wounds, each note a separate lash.
A kiss merits a beating. The colors of surfaces, or revenge. Can we determine how accurate the story is?
A satin bag tasseled in green.
A thousand miles of moonlight by which to get there.
"101 Vintage Nudes"
A small tasseled cap, a necklace of twisted beaded strands. Slim bands about her wrist.
A composition in hand-tinted red and sepia. No infinity plus one, but a discrete compilation.
She covers her sex with clasped hands.
Burton's propensities, such translations suggest "an exclusive anthology".
Subjecting our gaze.
Our fascinations the rationale of photography, Nador, Moreau, Neurdain adopt the task.
Her small and shapely breasts lean upward into the light, her face a shadow.
Femmes des "maisons closes". Obscured and captured, a single, silvered exposure.
Disportment and display. Burton's chronicle.
At his ease, his feet rest upon a heavy, brocaded stool, our album open upon his lap. A cup of cooled rose chun mee, its savor filling our mouths.
"seductive" :: "slave girls" :: "belly dancers"
Each roseate nipple targets our desire, her slim legs pillars of heaven.
Black hair tumbles over her shoulder, smooth and supple flesh, olive skin: our eyes, like his, glaze with longing.
Kissing her dark nipples. Kissing her secret sex.
Cherished, obedient seduction.
Ekleksographia:
Wave 4.1.c
August, 2010
Poetry
Amanda Stweart
Marthe Reed has published two books, most recently Gaze (Black Radish Books), as well as Tender Box, A Wunderkammer (Lavender Ink). She has two chapbooks from the Dusie Kollektiv, (em)bodied bliss and zaum alliterations. Her poetry has appeared in New American Writing, Golden Handcuffs Review, New Orleans Review, HOW2, Big Bridge, MiPoesias, Exquisite Corpse, and Fairy Tale Review. She edits Nous-zot Press.