Four Poems by Jennifer Still

Ruby-Throated

Suckneck hickey.

Love arrives
in black spandex,
winebottle swervy.

Hover, the dark peaks
of her, hiphorns

circling. The luster,
a thrust insider her
every

small
revved
wave.

*

Flaming Sambuca

A spark flares
in our palms,

shot glasses,
sapphire birds.

Take it back
and back,

our dancing bodies
in the dancing light,

the lip-synched licorice
drink.  What’ll it be girls?

A Paralyzer
or a kiss?

Pour us clear
and numb
and burning.

*

Hover

Just above
who we are

high enough
to forget

anything
so final

as the dress
on the  floor.

*

Whirlpool

So we slutted a decade.
Or worse, we didn’t
and still looked like that.

It was not meant to be sad,
our slur of bodies in the hot tub.
Our fevered, beer-buzzed

haze. We wanted to be seen
by the ones who weren’t
looking. First, strangers.
Then later, ourselves.

Jet pressures, there and there.
The steam as we rise, a nightgown
slipped. Ghosts, ghosts
on the loose.