By Kyle Hemmings
The Sleeping Woman
The sleeping woman does not wake in wholes
or in thirds. She takes out the garbage
like most women who feel the chill
at 6:a.m. Later, a man who cross dresses
in chokers and capes, pays her to run
a feather between his toes, to listen
to his long running dilemmas. She serves
cheese & crackers to a woman fading
by the light. There used to be a hoop
of Sundays when everyone was tall & giddy.
The sleeping woman passes the halls &
collects small donations for sadness
of the un-living. Her favorite charities are
undisclosed. In a high rise, she walks
through the lives of several men
suffering in various degrees from
vertigo or jaundice. Each night
she lays her sonorous life next
to executives who can never dream enough,
the ones who deny inevitable failure.
After another washed-out version of love
she talks in her sleep. She goes apneic.
The lovers in her dream never wake up.
How to Survive a Bear Hug from a Fat Man You No Longer Love
You could stomp against his instep, but why make another enemy? This kind of man, one who believes women should shave the hair in their armpits, is probably rich in counterattacks, savvy in winning your pity. You could yell FIRE! in his left ear, which is probably damaged from all those skinny girl lovers who never lasted the night, and chances are he’d interpret your desperation as a turn-on. Your best bet would be to hold your breath and count to…like the times you couldn’t remember the distinctive sign of bear tracks in Girl Scouts or the first time a girl refused to let go in the longest same-sex embrace of your life or the times your ex-husband asked why nothing pleases you. You told that mama’s boy that you’d always be a lonely girl with one cracked rib, a memory of fur from Sunday’s boisterous uncles who lived beyond their means. One thing you and the fat man have in common: you never show your hungry bear faces to anyone. In separate rooms, you and he dream of wild honey, grow nostalgic by cracked windows, become fuzzy in the dim. You tell the fat man that things are no longer the same. You tell him to please let go.
