Two Poems by Elizabeth Robinson

 

Cherimoya

 
The tongue conformed itself
 
around this large glossy darkness,
 
 
a groove cut from its own kernel, whose tartness cut
 
 
the overwhelming sweetness of the tongue congealing
 
around the seed.
 
 
The very notion of sweetness, what is sweetness, how does the flesh
 
cloy to its core, the buttery white flesh
 
 
of the tongue.
 
It had no
 
meaning in itself, only that it gathered
 
and recorded the seeds to its milky, furred breast,
 
 
an embrace meant to
 
 
disclose that the tongue was ready and
 
redundant in its velvet pocket of flesh.
 
 
 

On Fog

 
Gray, soft, tidal. One had no need to decide
 
whether to trust it. A key that is good in any lock. It recurs. It told us
 
about skin. How skin
 
 
is a form of sleep, visible from no measurable
 
distance. Yes, skin
 
reassured us.
 
 
Coming closer. Lock-picking drowse.
 
 
Sleepless
 
lock wrapping its leg
 
and skin into the burr
 
of the key. Sweat, curl. Lost in sweat,
 
sleep hushes its own bolt and catch. Lost in
 
surge. Yes, a cloud that stole by us as we implored it for sleep, asked
 
it to put our hair and pelt
 
 
back to us. It trusts us, and not
 
us trusting it. Regular as
 
 
gray is regular.
 
 
 
___________________________________________________________________

Elizabeth Robinson spent a month at the Djerassi Resident Artists’ Program this fall and will return to Montana as the Hugo Fellow in the spring of 2013. Her most recent books are Counterpart (Ahsahta) and Three Novels (Omnidawn).

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