19 (saints and winners)


She shows up, hangs around, and smiles at me.

I hover over her hair, and she knows.

They visit like this, when they’re in-between.

Hard to say who’s putting on the show.

You can see any part of a woman

if you look hard enough at her face.

To see her lips move, you can’t listen,

and she knows you can’t hear her from her waist.

Good trick: the overcoat then all that skin.

No matter how it goes, I break and break,

and I count the delights, for saints and winners.

And if I could just say what I can’t say

I would say and say and say: words to air,

and what a woman should know when you smell her hair.



originally published in Column