Adrienne Banks The 2River View, 7.1 (Fall 2002)
Shim

Rickets in Winter

the Pakistani man
at the roast beef deli
recalls his first woman,
bought cheap.
lifting a perfume bulge,
he did not know where to put it.
he did not know
what to do
with so much of a woman

I dream of a Pakistani prostitute.
I wake up to another soupy evening,
winter opening up her legs
peeling thigh from thigh
revealing never-ending
dark, dank, bloat.
the long night of winter’s legs sprawled,
she opens up, a willing whore.
I mourn the sun,
for what to do
with so much whore.
I hump it idly.
we make crazy eyes at one another
in the maddened winter ward,
our tongues made of snake meat,
our fingers probing a dark stench.

Shim
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