1. The girl in sixth grade who budded early.
Boys wrote her name on the insides of their eyelids;
I never took a chair by her at lunch.
2. The woman who lopped off Sampson's hair.
No decent way to say this:
even her armpits smelled like heaven.
Who could blame the man?
3. Feather boaed woman singing on a piano
at a bar
at three in the morning.
I have never known a woman like this.
4. Delilah, overscented,
at sixteen. She's got a neck
like the tower of Lebanon, legs
like gleaming marble. Her tum is a pile
of wheat; young men swear they'll climb her,
squeeze her through their flour grinders,
bake them some mighty fine bread.
Her mouth, when she opens to yawn,
is full of lilacs; they curl and burble
all over her tongue.
The boys have never known a woman like this.
5. Before rain, I cut two stems,
slip them into blue vase.
Every time I walk through the kitchen
to toss a wadded paper napkin
or open the refrigerator,
they catch me. It's indecent.
As they age, they will become
ever more potent, browning and bruising
but never losing their heavy,
full scent. Even now, at my window,
they rise from the ground,
pushing stale air. Big-bosomed flowers,
bloom forever.
