New | Two Poems | AHR

Sunday Afternoon by Sandor Bihari 

Someone else

My breath, your aphrodisiac

will be someone else’s

and my breasts

will be kissed by someone else

I will roll on my back

or sit up on my haunches

for someone else.

and my mouth will kiss

and pull away

from someone else

And the smile you smiled

will be smiled for me

by someone else

My silhouette

in the dark shadows of my bed

will be traced

by someone else’s hands

my legs will be wound around

the neck

of someone else

And when I sigh,

Replete,

I will sigh

For someone else.

Two by four

The end result was so prosaic,

A two by four unit

Of shelves, and a desk

A “black brown” the company said

And not nearly sturdy enough

I knew that when I hauled it upright with some help

Your help –

It wasn’t.

I took my fingers and turned the screws around

And around

So tight they went a subdued purple

The parts, the boards for shelves and partitions, the screws, and iron,

seemed to tear into my skin without leaving a mark

A rawness

Which magnified the ridges of my fingerprints

The lines of my palms

The creases and delicate dimples in my fingers

A latent pain, just below my small bones

I bent down low, and straddled the different pieces

The sweat coursed in thin rivulets

from my hair, ear, neck, down to my torso

When I bent further and my shirt hung loose, I thought –

A view:

For no one to see.

I did and re-did those shelves and the screws

Until they were just so

Do you remember a while ago,

When some planks of a similar dark wood

Were made into a table

And it was your hands that went purple

Like a faded eggplant?

And it was we who rested our glasses of water, the heat condensing

Droplets trickled down softly, as though the glasses were perspiring?

You took a big gulp

And we moved to the sofa.

I hauled the two by four upright, against the wall

My back and arms hurt

And I knew there would be a lingering ache tomorrow.