Underground

What lives below the surface does not
long for light, but tunnels like a mole
towards the core of past mistakes.  Figures
linger outside the bar next door, casting distorted
shadows across the floor of my basement
apartment where I quarrel with men who come
uninvited to my bed. They smoke my last
cigarettes and practice pick-up lines
in the circular mirror. I claim
only the grounds in my coffee pot,
torn stockings, and rain
pelting my window with insults, dirty talk.
When the skies clear, I gather
paper umbrellas hoarded all these years
and pass them out among subway riders
who burrow underground
believing all the while in light.

Night Skies

Once with you in Mexico, I drank
sangria on the clay verandah and rehearsed
currency, forgetting how many pesos
make a dollar. Overhead, 
the night sky filled with birds, their wings
dress patterns that obliterated stars and scissor-cut
the moon, dividing light into Orion's milky tears.

Here, weeks later, doves and sparrows
nest high in pines or low in the lilac bush
beneath the bedroom window, propped open
with a rainstick we bought from a shaman who carved
notches into the wood, one for each year we'd been married.
I cut my own notches inside, where no one can count,
a mark for each day you've been gone. 

Around my shoulders, your sweater
moth-chewed and tinged with the bitter sex
of cigarettes and perspiration. Tonight's skies
are starry and vacant and full of holes.

Jayne Pupek holds an MA in Psychology and lives near Richmond, VA. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in numerous online and print publications, including 2River, Wicked Alice, 3am, Ghoti, Dead Mule, and others. Primitive, her chapbook of poetry, is available from Pudding House Press. Jayne's first novel is scheduled for release Spring, 2006 by Algonquin at Chapel Hill.

Email: Jayne Pupek

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