by Peter Mladinic
1
I live with windows, doors, animals, trees,
the memory of ecstasy, certainty of dust.
Dust is dust. Ecstasy, the body’s soul,
the body erotic, not thought but lived
Sensual, sexual, not spoken but lived.
Felt, kindled, that beautiful like no other,
beauty not a thought, a moment seeing,
feeling were one where she stood naked.
Beautiful the last word on my lips.
I was all, seeing and feeling fully alive.
The memory lust-charged, full of lust,
love is the last word, the first two, her kiss.
The kiss of her mouth on mine, her body.
This poem is more mind than body,
the mind’s being, the certainty of dust
non being, coupled with being wholly—
Seeing hearing tasting smelling touching
of me with her in dim light behind a door.
Today, I don’t know if she’s still living,
if so, if she recalls our two bodies as one.
Perfect harmony, all motion set against
the stasis also perfect, the dust stillness
of the grave. Graveyards are for the living,
to be in, remember, mourn. I celebrate
the erotic realm of two in lust, she and I.
2
I remember a floor, the nearness of a dance
her name, a wall, the fierceness of her kiss,
the ferocity. Her mouth her body my mouth
my body were one grinding like a piston
in out up down back forth all in one flash
she and I, my back to the wall, the dim hall
outside her door. Erotic evenings behind
her door blend this morning into one night
one moment in the span of a lifetime.
I remember the sheen of her blonde hair.
Her tight shorts accented her rump’s heft
her hip’s curves, her hourglass womanly,
The shorts around her ankles, her body’s
motion as she stepped out of them,
the dark mound between her white thighs.
Her body, a girl’s except curvaceous hips
and full mound, said I am your woman
and you, my man. Am in contrast to am not,
the hesitant fumble of our being together
in contrast to certainty of non being.
We were there, unzipping. Those shorts
she stepped out of, a pink flower pattern,
I wonder if they still exist somewhere.
Easy to remember her unzipping them,
impossible to know non existence.
3
Stevens the poet lived in Connecticut.
I recall two lines from Stevens: Death is
the mother of beauty, and the body dies,
the body’s beauty lives. What he felt,
wrote, and left for us to contemplate.
Life is and isn’t the opposite of death,
the terrible finality of non being, non is.
As death is the certainty of dust, life is
doubt, hesitant, a fumbling going forward.
She and I went in the erotic realm,
took off our clothes in the ecstasy
of fumbling, night’s heat filled with doubt
the maybes the mistakes, imperfections.
The oppose of death: our lust, her breath
and mine, her imperfect body and mine
in lust’s boudoir going feverishly forward.
All the while “maybe” looming over us.
Our imperfect lust in the ceiling, the lamp
light, only, we were great together.
Her body’s kiss on mine like no other.
I wonder if she’s still living, if somewhere
the lamp exists, the shorts she stepped
out of, the rug, the door she opened
when I walked in, when I walked out locked,
to be safe from whatever was out there.
4
When you think about it, a lot of stuff
out there, but we can’t predict the future.
Doubt, like regret is part of life, so is love
and remembering and lust, and wondering
how we got here, came into being.
She and I never talked about what we did,
our seeing hearing touching tasting.
The stumble by chance into erotica
perfectly imperfect, accidental, unplanned.
We were for each other magnets,
against a wall two bodies, one kiss,
in our ferocity like a piston up and down.
Her eyes small, nose slightly bulbous,
mouth small in a face nothing much
to look at, that dims in time. But her kiss
lingers, her womanly body lingers.
Was she the one? Yes, of that I’m certain.
Of our lust, certain in my hesitant going
forward. I’m certain we were in lust
better than good, and dust’s certainty.
Happy to be, I’m ecstatic we were, she
And I. I’m ecstatic to know I have a dental
Appointment I may or may not keep.
I remember the mound between her thighs,
her womanhood, her two-syllable name.
About Peter Mladinic
Peter Mladinic’s fifth book of poems, Voices from the Past, is due out in November 2023 from Better Than Starbucks Publications. An animal rights advocate, he lives in Hobbs, New Mexico, USA.
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