Napalm Stares

by Janet Buck

I pedal by
your perfect legs
with all my strength--
addressing hills
bone burials
of trouble
in tuxedo form.
The press release
of mortal's globe
in glassy domes
of missing space.
Barbed wire eyes
are prison guards--
expelled from
playgrounds after school
by obvious lack
and chimes of grace
as sluggish as
wet bales of hay.
Armpit hair--
knobby knee-less
running naked
through the streets.
Napalm stares
explode in semen
of a poem.
Pain's pregnancy
is understood
but never, ever
carried home.

Janet teaches writing and literature at the college level. Her poetry and poetics have appeared in The Melic Review, The Pittsburgh Quarterly, Kimera, 2River View, Tintern Abbey, Southern Ocean Review, The Horsethief's Journal and hundreds of journals world-wide. In 1998 and 1999, she has received numerous creative writing awards and been a featured poet for Seeker Magazine, Poetry Today Online, Vortex, Conspire, Poetry Cafe, Dead Letters, the storyteller, Poetry Heaven, Athens City Times, Poetik License, 3:00 AM e-zine, Poetry Super Highway, and Carved in Sand. Newton's Baby Press is soon to publish her first print collection entitled Calamity's Quilt. Janet is one of ten artists to be featured at the "One Heart, One World" Exhibit at the United Nations Exhibit Hall in New York City in April, 2000. The tour will travel to four countries.