Dime a Dozen
Helene would rather a river and nouns, a jungle snowstorm of yellow butterflies, a sunbaked stone, than nine hundred and twenty dollars, amphetamine, a string of pearls. What else is new? A dime in a slot, a newspaper, two places at once, time zones. Millions and millions put and get and learn, and everything is the same as before, and no one would want to know that.
Lady of the Lamp
Is interested in the extraordinary. The blue jay and the bunny, rows of terra-cotta tiles, the patchwork on Doyers Street. To Helene a cemetery is a fragment, a context buried, the difference between earth and air and farm-fresh eggs.
She
She, a semiprecious sun, a ring of yellow, the early drop of blood and gold. She, a slumbering garden, a quiet pool, the skeleton of frogs. She, an afternoon, crisp at forty-five, the degree of wife and muse, the stillness in his feet.
Helene and Cole
It’s a slow throbbing, their existence, an evening year-round. The endless turquoise tub compared to the gothic nightingale dropping notes, window-wide between them, g’night moon. Lying in bed, a fluff after nine, in an avalanche of next hours. A detachable pendant, their head, the noise of ten thousand waves.
Iodized
He scoops a half-gallon of vanilla, Helene, and her hair. Pleasure as big as Montana, topaz, candlelight—et voila!, in California, a sky. Fly camera, catch the jazz of her tresses. She, Helene, flâneur, l’luminarie, emeralds, her two impossible eyes. He wonders of her privately, Helene, each and every part. His shimmering stick, and the slow spread of legs. The taste of sunset, and his head deep between her hips. Worshipper of Redwoods, and she, slender as any matchstick, her pit on fire, Helene, an orgasm buzzing on warm air, the sun, the moon, they wait to come, are quick to go, to hug this tree, to put an ear to a chest, to think of the heart as a great glass house.
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