POOL 

a journal of poetry

CATHY COLMAN

Letter to the Dark Mirror

"I'm getting to know you
one orifice at a time,"
you said, after we'd talked long
distance about sex
and vegetarianism.

I knew our relationship would always
be virtual. No magical bewitching
of twisted syllables and sheets woven
into replicas of our muscles.
No poppy-slaughter orgasm.

But it didn't matter. I was going for
the Audrey Hepburn Gestalt. Gaunt, 
but never naked, stripped of Givenchy
 with her wrists tied to a bedpost.
You thought you could ransom my desire
over the telephone?
My hearing's too good for that.

These days I sit for hours, watch the swan 
drag his dark mirror behind him.
Learn to eat what I'm handed.
Last summer before I met you, I rode in the ambulance 
and felt the centrifugal force of my life 
wanting to re-enter my body.

Sorrow, after all, being commonplace,
I didn't know I'd have to let the arrows go.