Templar Phoenix Literary Review

Templar Phoenix Literary Review - Volume 1, Number 2 - Summer 2000

JO SEROTA

Thatched

Your hair is a molded sculpture
and I want to touch it.
Brown mud on your face.

Shine highlights your forehead,
left cheek and bottom lip.
The bridge of your nose is white,
in the glare of artificial light.
I can see grit on it,
the texture of muddy grass
between your brows.
Your lips are drawn shut,
surrounded with brown mud.
Chin black with shadow,
your right cheek melts
into the negative space beside.

How I want to touch
your thatched face.
Graze my fingers
across its texture
and know how it feels,
with its gritty mud and grass.
Is it wet or dry?
If I brush my thumb across your cheek
will I scrape across your skin
like sandpaper?
Would dried mud chalk onto my thumb,
Or will I smear the sandy texture away
and see your true color beneath.

I love your face.
Could I love you?
I don't even know you.
But to press my lips against yours,
to look into your charcoal eyes
and feel cold wet mud on my face,
to taste your mud on my lips . . .

My heart pounds!
Looking at your muddy face
and into your shadowy canyon eyes . . .
My mud angel,
you are so peaceful
you don't move.
But the room does when you look at me.

About the Poet

At twenty-six years of age, Jo Serota has returned to college to complete a bachelor's degree in writing within the interdisciplinary studies major at Towson University. Jo is interested in pursuing a career in editing while teaching writing at a college level. In her spare time, she enjoys visiting with her parents and brother Pete in New York where she grew up. In addition, Jo mountain bikes, hikes, swims and snowboards in celebration of the outdoors. She is currently excited about embarking on a new page of life in moving in with her beau, Anthony.

E-Mail: hugabljill@aol.com