Monday, March 11, 2013

Ekphrastic piece


This piece was created in response to the following poem by my colleague Dr. Gary Leising, in the English Department at  Utica College (I will re-post a better photo in the next day or two... I was just excited to get this posted now):

I have heard of people being born with tails or webbed feet,
so why do you not believe I have a lizard tongue
darting out then in, in then out, testing the air,
tasting the scent of meat on a neighbor’s barbecue.
I tell my wife the cut of pork—loin—the sauce’s
flavor—honey garlic—before my fleshy forked tongue
runs the rim of my thin, nearly nonexistent lips.

Why must it be forked? I wonder at the mirror,
why a snake- or Komodo-dragon-like thing
for years scaring away clients on sales calls, women
in singles bars folding a tiny clutch under an arm,
scooting with Scotch or a martini to a dim corner spot?

I want so little – not even a human tongue,
but a chameleon’s, a long, precise projectile;
from ten feet I could hit Roosevelt’s nose
on a dime. As the daiquiri-drinking busty
blonde moves away, she won’t know what hits her,
a fleshy arrow suctioning to the highest point
of her model perfect, lightly rouged high cheekbone.

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