Vasica

By Jay Rubin

—San Diego State, 1981

Those nights you phoned

The moon posed nude among the stars

The sky a block of black ice

 

I parked outside your trailer door

Freckled breasts and sour breath

Greeted me with vodka teeth

 

In bed, your ankles hooked my knees

Each open eye a blue-green sea

A crashing tide upon the beach

 

And leaving you each night a stone

A string of shells along your sheets

I knew no rope would rescue you

 

I grabbed my coat, I grabbed my keys

At least my yearning you appeased

 

Jay Rubin teaches writing at The College of Alameda in the San Fran­cisco Bay Area and publishes Alehouse, an all-poetry literary journal, at www.alehousepress.com. He holds an MFA in Poetry from New England College and lives in San Francisco with his wife and son.

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