KATHELEEN OSSIP

Little America

Pilot truck – follow me. Do you know
what Tierra Amarrilla means? She’s
called Sophie Dear ‘cause she sleeps
on the sofa and runs like a deer. Jesuchristo!

Let’s not stay in Gallup. The guide-
book says it’s a drinking town. Y’ever been
to the bigass rodeo in Madison Square Garden?
You want that pie hotted up? Good

god, what was that? There’s no way I’m climbing
a ladder up that cliff, I’ll tell you that right
now. D.H.Lawrence lived in that hut?
I’ll be Dave, your masseur. Since we’re driving

through Flagstaff, we should try
and find Little America. If I see one
more petrified log, butte, or canyon…
When we were in the Plaza just now, I

saw a really really sad boy at a payphone
with two men too young to be his father.
Gusty winds may exist. I’m not
happy about the underwear situation.

from The Search Engine (pub. by American Poetry Review)

Nursling

Over there, a fly buzzed – bad.
All ours: the bra, the breast, the breeze.
Starlet of the reciprocal gaze.
Something about her rhymed like mad.

And ours the sigh, the suck, the sing.
We forgave everything we could.
Ravenous palmist. I’m gone for good.
At last I gauged the brash, brash spring.

The skin fiend folded like a faun.
Torso Magellan. Time’s own nub.
Here at the center of the dimmest bulb.
A mouth hovered before latching on.