Rosanna Lee (NYC, USA): Two Poems

LOBSTER

Sir, you are obscene!

Your plated, besmattled shards
enclose the meat of human
delicacy, ripped apart, smothered
in cups of oily lard and slurp.
Your neck, perhaps or that round
swinging fan of an ass, $18.95 entree.
Some VDA ridden sailor hoisted
this oversized, obscene insect,
with his antennae flailing pathetically about
and the lodged furry creature caught in its neck
flapped out like the buzz of the insane,
and this sailor see, he was a
very, very hungry! So, alas - crash
against the jetty just like the
Grecian octoputhie and his life gave out
into the last cringes and epilepsies
like those huge black summer ants,
he heaved his last obscene breath,
and the sailor -
He made love to the dead lobster.
He stuck himself messily inside the
encased filaments of short haired flesh
and he feasted and hollered and
shrank in awe of this beauteous prospect,
“Oh, lobster come back to life, I love you!”

APPENDAGES

The first time in my life,
I see them as appendages,
the first time they've been
too big.

As a little girl, lying in bed in the dark,
I would stare at the little budding anthills,
pointy torpedoes, I would imagine them one
day as mountains.

Now, I understand how dangerous it is to
have that life force strapped to you,
hanging from your heart.

In the Grapes of Wrath, she gave that old
starving man her breast after her blue baby
had been buried, such life!

A death spy located at the side, growing,
aching, throbbing. Keep it a secret from
mother.

I've looked at the films, they look like
bleach spilled on seaweed under a microscope:
singing, sing, sing
for me, it'll be fine.

© Rosanna Lee 2007