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| Geography Lessons In the living room tundra, we huddle together. I am spring against her winter in Alaska, we heave off glaciers with cracks and moans and rain. I spin a slender anklet around the Sahara-bone of her leg, and let my scorpion fingers scramble up the hem of her pants. During ascent, my hand becomes a wild moose climbing Denali draped in permafrost. She tucks iceberg-feet under the thick Tropic of My Thighs. Arms like Sonoma vines cling my waist, her eyes are my Northern Lights. My tongue, my hand-made canoe, drags across the plains of her neck, in search of the Mississippi, rewarded with the shivers, prairie winds. A tornado develops in the bedroom, rips across the heartland, with its molasses and covered wagons. She uproots every stalk of wheat and flings them to California, New York, New Mexico, Vermont, until I cry for a familiar east coast, beg for salt taffy. Then she laps at me like the Atlantic mouths a Carolina beach. Biology Lessons My woman's hands are quick, with fingertips like moths that sometimes perch on ticklish knees or rounded shoulder, flit through hair searching through light, or dance across skin, one imperfect nail dragging behind the others-- a scratch to remind me even moths can be dangerous. When those tiny insects land on my mouth, my venus fly-trap, my precarious blossom, parted lips kiss and pretend to consume them. I point out the grass, the roses, other things much safer; I warn her of the peril in loving carnivorous plants; and though her legs like asparagus stalks, cautious and slim, cross one another with care, her hands are never so discreet. When I bring my mouth to her ear and whisper jeopardy, the moths find my stomach and she braves the risk. Leaf Lessons My woman only knows four ways to move. The first is a dainty swirl to the ground or the floor or car window or back stoop. She loves to fall and stick with the slick of rain. When she lands in puddles, she lies on the ripples and does not fade, a technicolor water lily. Washed away, she navigates creek beds with twists and ducks. She is as swift as the smallest twig or lightest water-bug, but when caught on a smooth rock, wrapped around it and drowning, she never calls for me. Who has ever heard a leaf crying? I pick her up and tuck her in my apron pocket, bring the pebble to remind her. |
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| At the Blue Door I am knocking, even keeled and hungry. My love is too far away to hear me. In a hall-way shaped kitchen, she is bent over a slowly turning layered cake, a free hand clutching a decorating tube. I am steady, knocking and patient. She will answer the blue door smiling. Later, I will sit behind her in the mustard-colored meeting chair, gaze at an aloe plant in a high window. She will flail as she talks, back turned, knife jabbing at unsuspecting air. The corrugated steel will horrify, excite me. I will sit solid like a useless appliance, until she turns the point towards herself, chatting about her mother's culinary triumphs. The closeness of that blade to slender neck will cause me to rise, encircle wrist with warm fingers, pry it from hands that give way like soft icing, calmly lean in to her endangered skin and press my lips to clavicle bone, feel her jump but not withdraw as my cold nose brushes freckled shoulder, release her again to her careful designs and cake dome, retreat to my rough tweed-corner, aloof aloe plant, latent desire. I am knocking. |
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12.07.06: Scarlet Letters -- in case it isn't glaringly obvious -- is currently
on an extended hiatus. The web has changed, we've changed, and
we're trying to figure out how we both fit together now, which isn't a process we want to rush. If you're looking for more current SL-related content, you can
have check out upcoming books from editor Heather Corinna and previous co-editor Hanne Blank, check out Heather's current sexuality sites, or explore sites through the femmerotic network. We hope to be back with you soon, as fresh, challenging and
unexpected as ever.
In the meantime, by all means, enjoy our years of past content,
all of which still remain in the public and subscription areas.
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