UNHEIMLICH

She (ex)claims

That she wouldn’t

Normally do this.

As though normalcy

Were not

The taste

Of this--his kiss

Smoky with languor,

These nights, these notches,

Past state lines

And reasonable boundaries

About home.

(In a place instead of home,

Where on a moment’s holiday

A winking sea--wet

and wrinkled--watches

kiss-freckled skin

and velvet-beaded sweat)

But she’s beyond straying--

Thinking about staying,

Or contemplating

Saying the tendernesses

Stuck so bonily

Further down her throat.

[My note: In this poem, i tried to use unheimlich in its straight-from-dictionary sense--"un-home-like," and also in its literary sense as "uncanny." Additionally, there's some play towards the end on the Heimlich Maneuver.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go and talk to my mom, she'll probably agree with you on me being a rowdy rascal.]


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