Lucía M. Polis The Poetry of

This poem appears in The Love of a Good Man.

Hot water burns like fire. But, for now,
the alarm bell in the belly is calm.
The sun shines heatlessly and kindly.

I groom the lashes of the trees.
I seduce myself under cover of day.
I note the fences that divide propriety

for rampant child or animal.
Je fais la chirurgie et puis j'apporte
une tomate pour toi de mon jardin.

You taste the vesicating rupture
of its skin upon your tongue. My brother's
white, muscular digits reach out to me

through the dark, moist earth,
touch my own pale fingers.
The sun shines equally on all.