Seduction of the Poem
I am talking you away from the lover who promised to be faithful – that isn't a typo, and that lover's still me. Get into the car. That's all that it takes. You're being talked to the place where nothing you choose determines what happens. For haven't you wanted to ride in the rain with the top down ever since watching the wind blow the spume off those waves at the cliff house? I tell you we are going to go fast. That way the windshield's an upright umbrella and your thin cotton shirt will not start to reveal you. I don't have to know. It's your adventure, not mine, and right now you don't care what is under your clothes. Right now you are watching the streak of these wipers for that dry explication that lies between lines. And this corner we are turning – this corner that's maybe no more than a bend – puts behind you any notion that anyone who knows you still has you under tabs. For now you are my sweatheart. In this grip our world's glove turns the wheel that will steer us. In this fist our palms lie palm to palm.
last sign
the turnoff
closed
• Charles Hansmann's work has appeared previously in Ink Sweat & Tears – he says about IS&T “Your interest in that undefined area where prose and poetry merge plays out also in the categories of prose poem and haibun. I like work that can go either way.”
