Two Poems By James Cihlar

by Mark Bibbins, Editor

Quality Street

The rain is a screen of lace.
Her buttons are bows.
He is bedecked in epaulets and sash.
This is a good year for females.

They can remove wooden legs
from the men. Age
is a matter of cosmetics.
Her gestures are electric.

The great battles recede
into an excuse for masquerade.
She laughs at annihilation.
It was only love for an hour.

This street is ruled by women.
The aunt is also the niece.
The haggard one is real.
Her face is wet in the rain.

Murder, My Sweet

A murderer’s reflection in a window.
The shadows of letters
on the accomplice’s broad camelhair chest.

The dame’s prehensile face,
a montage of moues,
a myriad of planes.
Her extreme upsweep,
an enflamed premotor cortex.

The villain’s hooded eyes,
his underbite.
Wearing light like gilding.

The mug’s aggressive plaid.
Doodles of cigarette smoke.
Angel hair on a lens.

The detective can’t have sex
until he solves the mystery.

Mist creeps across the ravine.
Shadows swirl into a point of light,
whose focus widens
into a woman’s scream.

Crowns on taxis,
crowns on doors.

Streetlamps made of alabaster.
A match struck on an angel’s ass.
Black coffee, eggs, scotch and soda.

When we look at sex
the whole world goes silent.
It’s unanswerable.

Smoke curls like a snake
in the dark.
One lamp lights a whole room.

James Cihlar is the author of Undoing (Little Pear Press, 2008) and Metaphysical Bailout (Pudding House Press, 2010). His writing appears in American Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, Lambda Literary Review, Smartish Pace, Mary, Rhino, and Forklift, Ohio.

If you’re looking for more poetry, boy do we ever have some here, in The Poetry Section’s vast archive. You may contact the editor at [email protected].