Other Poets/Other Poems

Anonymous, Issue 17

Antler, Issue 36

Amy Beeder, Issue 16

Boyd W. Bensen, Issue 31

Donna Biffar, Issue 15

Kimberly Blaeser, Issue 27

P. W. Boisvert, Issue 39

Rick Cannon, Issue 28

Jared Carter, Issue 24

David Chorlton, Issue 40

Billy Collins, Issue 1, Issue 18

Steven Coughlin, Issue 39

Philip Dacey, Issue 6

Denise Duhamel, Issue 13

Stephen Dunn, Issue 34

Stuart Dybek, Issue 41

Dave Etter, Issue 14

Norma Hammond, Issue 22

David Hernandez, Issue 23

Susan Holahan, Issue 12

Angela Just, Issue 32

Lisa Kadous, Issue 20

Julie King, Issue 30

Lyn Lifshin, Issue 19

Mary Lucina, Issue 26

Louis McKee, Issue 5

Pamela Miller, Issue 8

Lisel Mueller, Issue 29

Alexis Orgera, Issue 35

James Reiss, Issue 26

Len Roberts, Issue 2

Kristopher Saknussemm, Issue 10

R. T. Smith, Issue 38

Cathy Song, Issue 21

Judith Valente, Issue 37

Charles Harper Webb, Issue 25

Mary Ann Waters, Issue 11

J. D. Whitney, Issue 33

Bayla Winters, Issue 3

Lila Zeiger, Issue 4

Return to Sample Poems

Kristopher Saknussemm
Issue 10 Summer, 1992

 

Second Honeymoon

You know what I miss most?
Watching you try to fold maps.
And the way you always waited
until you were in the car
to spray on your perfume.

Do you still drive out through
the oil derricks when you need
time to think? Can you still drive?
My father says he can, and he's been
dead as long as you.

And I miss the smell of your skin
when you got hot dancing—
sitting in those cane chairs
listening to that stupid parrot.
My old man comes back at night
to drink Old Crow with me.
Old man, old crow. Hah. He knows.

Come back and smell like limes
and White Shoulders perfume and we'll drink
Tanqueray and ice. Come back to me
and we'll count mirages all the way
to Mazatlan. Please. I have one arm
out the window—and one hand on the wheel.

I'm about to cross the border
in a haunted car,
with three arrests, no convictions,
and nothing to declare.

 

--Kristopher Saknussemm
Copyright © 1992 by Free Lunch Arts Alliance