Fanmail for L.C.
by Geoffrey Cook
I can only see you writing poems
or making love, as if the rest of life
were dressed to kill, made-up to pass the time.
I always see you in some crampt and ill-lit room
where sheets of loose-leaf, like unanswered mail,
and books with broken spines are splayed beside
the candles, jewels and half-devoured fruit:
the unwound metaphors of orange rinds,
and split pomegranates like sparkling nests
of bloody stars.
XXXXXXXXXXXThe bed beyond the desk's
as open as a book where love's as seared
by molten sheets of silk as by pages smeared
in ink: eyeliner in tears. It's here you pull
off shirts and skirts like perfect rhymes and roll
your stockings down like well-recited poems:
an image all dressed up for a dressing down.
Since publishing this poem Geoffrey Cook
has become one of The Danforth Review's poetry
editors. His poetry has been published in "Pottersfield Portfolio", "The Nashwaak
Review", and "Descant (#104)". This fall some of his poems will appear
in "Matrix" and "The Gaspereau Review". Geoff has received a Toronto Arts
Council Award and a grant from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du
Quebec for his poetry. He has also published numerous essays over the
years in "Pottersfield Portfolio", "The Fiddlehead", "Books in Canada",
and "Comparative Literature in Canada". Originally from Nova Scotia, Geoff
currently teaches English at John Abbott College outside Montreal, where
he lives. He is seeking a publisher for his collection of poetry, "Postscript".
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