Three Poems By Jennifer Lagier: Peaches and Camille, Post Pinot Noir; Transformative; Humidity

Three Poems By Jennifer Lagier: Peaches and Camille, Post Pinot Noir; Transformative; Humidity, SNR, SNReview, Starry Night Review, Joseph Conlin, editor

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Three Poems
By Jennifer Lagier

Peaches and Camille, Post Pinot Noir

Still tipsy from two glasses of wine and an Irish coffee,
she returns to the room, rips off her clothes and pulls on
a tight animal print swim suit, heads out the door.

When she wades, then slides into the roiling hot tub,
children and their parents scatter. Out of the darkness
comes the red bikinied woman she had met at the bar.

Side by side, the women allow their bare legs to drift
and flutter, soft shoulders coming closer, then touching.
They talk, share a bit more. One is blonde, the other brunette.

Later as they meander up a single staircase, they giggle
at the resumption of unending rainfall, admire how
the alcohol has left them with no inhibitions at all.

Transformative

Iceplant infiltrates the scrambled aftermath of past storms:
monolithic granite chunks sculpted by incoming tides.

Reddened succulents push themselves west
between boulders and pale sand, toward frigid surf.

Persistent waves smooth and score broken stone,
reshape and soften Monterey Bay’s rigid geography.

Your words wash over me, release what was frozen,
transform torn edges and aching fissures.

Like ever-changing, constantly shifting beach terrain,
I feel myself subtly altered, restored.

Humidity

By late afternoon, sidewalks pulse.
Tiny lizards dodge among moving feet.
After sunset, a bloated moon floats overhead.

Wetness oozes from skin and walls.
Ceiling fans simply stir what is stewing.
Any movement requires effort, raises a sweat.

Strange insects rasp and crackle.
All night, I grumble and spin, entangled
in torrid sheets, hallucinogenic dreams.

Despite my best efforts, I am dripping,
inflamed by absence and humidity,
the intense lunar heat.

Jennifer Lagier has been published online and in print, most recently in Avocet, Trajectory, Word Riot, Nerve Cowboy, Harbinger Asylum Review, Backstreet Quarterly, The Clark Street Review, Centrifugal Eye, Wilderness House Literary Review, PKA’s Advocate, Amoskeag, The Rockford Review, Sugar Mule, Snail Mail Review, Steam Ticket, Song of the San Joaquin and The Homestead Review. Her six books of poetry are: Coyote Dream Cantos (Iota Press, 1992), Where We Grew Up (Small Poetry Press, 1999), Second-Class Citizen (Voices in Italian Americana Folio Series, 2000), The Mangia Syndrome (Pudding House Publications, 2004), Fishing for Portents (Pudding House Publications, 2008), and Agent Provocateur (Paisano Press, 2012). She was nominated for a Pushcart in 2012 and is a member of the Pacific Northwest Writers Association, the Italian American Writers Association, Santa Cruz Front Street Poets, and the Rockford Writers Guild. She maintains websites for three online literary magazines and helps coordinate the Monterey Bay Poetry Consortium monthly readings.

Copyright 2013 © Jennifer Lagier. This work is protected under the U.S. copyright laws. It may not be reproduced, reprinted, reused, or altered without the expressed written permission of the author.