SELECTED POEMS
By Sarah Gambito

from

Aiice James Books, Farmington, Maine
© 2004
www.alicejamesbooks.org

Untitled

I

Some say I’m a violent person. I just like to get souped up.
I could’ve stayed like that for days. And I did. 78 hours.

The owner didn’t come.
The misogynist didn’t come.
My late great Chachi, alas, didn’t come.

But I was there. Even though the Muse didn’t show, I was there.

I made love until they rang the buzzer.

I was a borealis and it was all he could do
to hold me in a diesel cup.
I poured out like rain unto tears.

Standing out in the cranberry park, my champion said,
“I hated it with him and I hated it with you.”

II

Some say I’m an emotional person. I think I just like to eat a lot.
I like to say yes on the telephone and go to UPS to pick up my
packages.

One came the other week—too late for Christmas—too early for
the new year. It shammied and shimmied.
A book, he said, of course of my childhood.

Can it mean that you are a Taoist? Featherproof? Holidaypipe?
It was just that she sat so together.
That she gritted her teeth while I looked for handlebags.
She said, “You don’t know.”

And it was her look of her waiting for me.
A brook so cold—standing in—
looking for the tritri fishes.

III

I’m red. I go fast. I have a leather interior. I have a halogen stereo.
They all wish they could stay in me.

They say:

            Clean me.
            Write me.
            Hold me.

I’m gainin’ ground all the time.

Carolina
Dakota
Alabama sans souci.

I have a killer sound track.
I’m in animation making all the difference.

They’re in a red room.
Do none of them die?

© Sarah Gambito

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