Shower

I got home tonight, 12:33 A.M.

It's already tomorrow.

I didn't want to start my day

Wishing it were already over

The night sky nearing brightness.


I'd like to step in your shower

Let your drops, molting leaves

Fall off my arched neck

Dribble slowly down my breasts,

Stomach, thighs, knees

Until my feet are swollen red

Weighted by your touch.


I want your sweet warmth

To loosen my back muscles

Release the boa that constricts me.

Catch my breath.

Lose track of time.

Laugh at soggy fingertips.


Your fingers tip me.

I'm blindfolded and spun around

Ten times.


Tipping

Falling

Tipping

Falling


You catch me.


by E. M. Soos

Share, Shallow, Shalom

You're a pretty girl, he said,
but you could be hot.
Some make-up, different hair-do.
I wondered if he thought I'd thank him.
Should I get a boob job while I'm at it?
Figures he'd take offense,
Was only trying to help.

Thanks for your thoughtfulness,
all us lowly girls need guys like you.
Guide us. Where do we begin
to impress your kind?
Your insect mind?
When I die, I hope you're available
to apply my make-up.
Then my eulogy can include,
and she's a fine piece of ass,
mmm mmm.

by E. M. Soos

Night Walk

I sprint up the tiny hill, an island
in the rolling park.
The winter brings darkness
at 5:30, everyone snuggled inside
eating potatoes and steamed carrots.
A mouth full keeps the peace. The war
stops only to care
for this basic necessity.

Sammy follows me, panting
jogging her age.
I turn to watch her, four legs
six perhaps. In the moonlight
we look half our age.
I feel mighty, winded.

It matters not what we look like,
me running in Converse and blue jeans
Sammy without her collar.
Scaring birds from their nests
they caw out their warnings.

We do not run for the exercise
to go anywhere, to get away.
We run to feel like wind, we move
trees, shape clouds
tap windows.

I sing, Sammy politely ignoring
my pitch. She sniffs at nothing.
God watches from a lilac.
He doesn't know what he's missing
I think, attempting a cartwheel.

by E. M. Soos

Tuesday Storm

Dark hovering clouds
survey the landscape,
search for earth untouched;
dry arms outstretched toward heaven.

Red and orange catch eyes,
God unnoticed until wet.

by E. M. Soos

I Found My Beauty

It took me over again, two days ago. My enemy. I locked myself in the bathroom. I looked in the mirror and couldn't find beauty. My body felt heavy, bloated, embalmed. I wanted someone to find me, drain my pus-filled skin. I sat on the closed toilet seat in my green satin pajamas. I wrapped myself in bubbles, wanted to worry about no one, but the pictures wouldn't leave my eyes.

I see a man who loves me, kisses my scars. I pushed his sadness away, hoped I could be happy then. My heart still mounted that black winged horse.

I see another man from whose happiness I feed. I suck joy from his words. I can't help wondering if I'm exposing him to my craters, hope he doesn't fall in. He should be under the kitchen table laughing with his three year-old nephew, drawing with chalk.

I see my little sister, nineteen years old. Dropped her classes this semester. Lives in a layer of dirt. Wild mice in the walls. Dirty litter boxes. She escapes her new home with a bowl. Smokes until there is no stress.

I see the porn star, the smirk in her eyes. John and Zak try to "enlighten" me, to show me that porn never hurt anyone. I try to see what they see. I see two people having unprotected sex. "But they've been tested. She's gotta be on birth control." I see a woman whose career is fulfilling man's lust. "But she makes more money than all of us." I can't help wondering about her future as the camera focuses on her waxed vagina. What if she has children? Will she proudly tell them what she's done?

I see a homeless woman trying to sleep on the beach. It's three o'clock in the afternoon. She stays near the parking lot as if the ocean doesn't welcome the likes of her. Families walk along the waves. John, Zak and I play catch, our baseball mitts sandy. I want to feel joy from this playful throw, but I can feel the woman's eyes on my back. She stirs restlessly. Her bedroom is my playground.

The picture bubbles were pierced when the phone rang. The hard toilet a haven to my softness. I made myself stand up, take a shower, eat, spend the day with my sisters. We spoke of dreams, the future, none of us fulfilled where we were.

I drove home last night. Got stuck in traffic. Wanted to be alone in my room. I opened the front door and was greeted by the man who loves me. I didn't stop to hug or kiss him, kept unloading my car. He stood by my side, helped me silently, a faithful dog waiting patiently. When I finally faced him, I expected to hear his fears, his doubts. I waited to hear the blame. None of that came. Instead he thanked me. He felt that if it weren't for me he wouldn't have come this far and said even if we didn't work out he was grateful for the time we shared. I cried at the words. We talked like the old friends we are, and I loved him again.

Today I woke up. The mirror still shows my swollen neck, my crooked nose, my unused body. Today I smiled. I see beauty. I had been looking in the mirror, waiting to see what my friends see in me. I laughed. How could I have forgotten? Three days ago I convinced two grown men to play hide-and-seek. A six-foot three-inch man tried to hide under a blanket.

Today I found my beauty, not in my mirror, but in the eyes of my enemy.

by E. M. Soos

A Visit to Monterey

"We argued for about a state," John says, sipping his Malibu Rum and Coke. I just had to laugh at the words, even as my hands trembled of you.

John regrets letting her get away. I regret leaving this town. There's nothing like regret to excuse drinking to drown.

I walk by myself, memorizing each dusty step of the PG trail. I remember walking this path after lonely days of work. The waves still crash on the rocks. The smell is the same, salt mist dangling, clinging to flowering cliffs, and I think of how I came here to shrug off the day so I could come home and greet you with a smile.

I sit off the trail now, watch the green and blue waves, lean my head on a wet rock. It shields me from the cold breeze. I cry with beauty. A fly lands on my shoe, washes its face. I wonder what or who I was in my lives before this one. Why can't I be this beach fly, know nothing of love or sadness, feast on the shit in life?

I stand up and a hoard of flies rush at me. I walk back and a blackbird follows me. He stares at me, cussing, calling me, demanding that I stay. I keep walking. The path narrows and I put one foot in front of the other. A sparrow watches me pass. I wonder why he didn't fly away. My heart bleeds through the soles of my feet, leaving fresh prints that I can't protect.

by E. M. Soos