LOVERS AND TEASERS

A Salty Walk with Gandhi Of Mohandas I only say, "Aha, Here's a man knows his satyagraha. He sleeps with his nieces As much as he pleases With hardly a tee-hee or ha-ha." Joe Wrobel

Poison Apple by RoseMarie London

"He was on his back, in a pool of light from the street, this velvet hair spread all over the floor around him."

Shop of Stones In the shop of stones I buy you bloodstone, crystals, green and white striped jade. I buy you stones to throw which will never hit their mark. In the shop of sea I buy you seaweed -- kelp lace for your petticoat, brown scallop shells for your hair, red fish for your necklace. In the shop of sun I buy you two umbrellas, one has a handle shaped like a goose's head and neck, the other ends in a rosewood lion's head. In the shop of time I buy you minutes shaped like marbles. Cat's eyes, but you're no cat. I place frogs and salamanders at your feet -- no avail. In the shop of implements I buy you wool trousers with shoes attached. I buy you a horse dressed like a man, a cobra, friendly and mechanical, sleek lizards, also mechanical. I call you, just FAX tone -- a shriek. Then when I call and call, no answer, you're not home. I will not call you there again. And wait and wait at the crosswalk, shopping done. I just want you to come. I call to you aloud, ask passersby where you are. They look startled. "We don't know where she is," they say. They all seem know you though. When will I see you? When will I hear you say: "Thanks for all these things, love." Stephen Williamson

Untitled, so you won't think, I think of you. . . Just because I buy earrings of Czechoslovakian glass, doesn't mean I think of you. Beads-- crystal and gentianly purple faceted and faced, like the phrases you roll between your fingers, tip with your tongue as you did my nipples which are much softer, and feed almost as many desires-- Framing the photo card I found of the ecstatic dark haired man, shirtlessly slim, hugging his infant son, does not suggest that you are in my heart listing to the side where it leaned toward you as you slept three inches away. I breathed you, kept forearm against your sweater to tactell me this man is not a night wish, a cloud created on a winter glass pane. He will awaken to touch me again. Dreaming of a secret room somewhere in the cornfields, under the stairs, stars stirring above an awning jutting out like a balcony, or a window box greenhouse where I wait, not of course, for you, as I once waited for the time you would come back to me while I helped hold you, butt to my belly, and you arced more golden rain into the bowl than you did in the guest room's one sink. . . "Want to help me?" you asked. And you knelt to tease my own dawn briar, its dew. "Salty," you said. Watching for the hour I could descend to your rolling bed one floor away, so you would place your hand to rest where it belonged on the ribbed feather of my skin cage. . . If I could just loft, lift sail to you on a pea-green summer sea, skimming states, to find the children of your stories, the woman of your words. . . Who you see when you don't think of me. MaryAnn Bennett Rosberg

Blessings For a Young Woman Crones and Mothers, guide the one Who plays advancing Maiden. Tune The roles she risks in circus fun To mythos: Clown in purple plume, Enchanter of the river's run, Ring mistress of the table noon, Acrobat of the cartwheel sun, Equestrienne of the crescent moon. Joe Wrobel

Madonna Who? Small town girl makes good and the world trembles William Timberman

Wakening: Ann's Story Lying side by side holding hands, talking -- friends not lovers. She said, "I was really into sports, long distance biking. Even now, well, you know...you've seen me do yoga." "You're incredible. I don't know how you do it." "Well, there weren't many girls into sports where I grew up in Minnesota, not like me, so.... I cycled with the boys. One hot summer day we were out cycling, and we stopped. Well...they were all standing there without their shirts on. Something...a feeling.... I don't know...maybe it was hormonal.... "You weren't one of the boys anymore." "No, "Ann laughed," I wasn't one of the boys anymore! They called me over...all involved in consulting the map. " "And they didn't realize, of course?" "No, they didn't have a clue! They are all standing there, holding this silly map, all very serious, and I'm looking at their bodies, you know.... "They didn't sense anything had changed...." "No!" "Until they realized you might sleep with them?" "They just kept treating me like one of the boys. It took them so long!" "Then you made love to one of them, and they got the idea you were a girl." "Yes, that's right." "...And not one of the boys anymore. And you...both gained something, and lost something, right? Because you liked being one of the boys, you'd never be one of the boys again." "That's it." "The world shifted in an instant?" "Yes. I'll never forget standing there looking at them. They just kept talking on and on about the route! And asking me what I thought and everything." "And that suddenly, you'd become a woman and they'd become men?" "Yes, I was really unprepared for it. But it's not been bad." Stephen Williamson

Cerebral Split I (love you.) don't (you love me?) have (you ever wondered, if) the (world had been a different place,) strength (less important than honesty, would you have been willing) to walk (with me) away from (everything) you (have?) Jon Alperin

Little Quean Roughie Little Quean Roughie sat on his toughie polishing his leather ring. Along came a sister. He zipped up and hissed her, but she cared not a fig for his thing. Louie Crew

On First Dates 10 feet from the door of McGlinchey's where I am to meet Michael for as many beers as it takes for us to tolerate each other for one more night -- and I spot you sauntering down the block toward the same bar, my kindergarten-like crush on you piqued by your lengthy stride and tipped hat brim... [You are incomparable to my current lover, blond Van Dyke the shade of artichoke heart, thighs and calves like those of an Olympic decathlete, eyes as green as the grapes in Martha's Vineyard, and I am utterly smitten with your ability to converse about forensics and science fiction.] ...and I spot you, stop you as you reach for the door handle, and ask if we might rendezvous tomorrow in Rittenhouse Square. You eye me as if I have offered gold, and accept the invitation. The next day, precisely noon, I arrive in the park; you are reading Douglas Adams and drinking a Sprite. I sit beside you on the stone bench, greet you with warm passion. We chat lightly, how warm the sun is, how crowded the park is. You tell me a story about trying to pick up women with your friend's mutt, wrapping the pooch's leg in gauze to feign injury. We laugh, and I ask if you want to go to Penn's Landing where it is more private and cooler. You accept the invitation. Down at the waterfront, we watch silly boat races and tourists. I want to hold your hand, kiss you deep, but I hesitate. You seem unsure about this dilemma as well. An hour passes, we want beer, and get in the car to find another secluded venue. Before starting the ignition, I lean over, tell you I want to kiss you, and press hard on your lips. We part faces, agree in unison about the kiss's perfection, and connect again. After the beers, we ascend the stairs to your apartment, you in front, me behind, holding hands like a pair of elephants lined trunk to tail. We kiss for hours on your fire escape, your Van Dyke brushing relentlessly on my face, our tongues sloppy, our hands everywhere. I want to run away with you, maybe to Australia, to live like aborigines, recline under stars in fields of brush, climb with koalas, never to return to Philadelphia. But then it is 5:30 pm, and I am scheduled to meet with Michael for drinks (again) at 7:00 that evening, and I cry hard when I get in the car, because it is you with whom I want to spend my evening, my life... Later at McGlinchey's, I'm on my fifth pint of porter, Michael is on his seventh, and you walk in the door, sober, and I notice that you have shaved, a smooth chin replacing the rough hair that chaffed my face only a few hours earlier. Madelaine Sauk

On Domesticity The mail arrived at 8:30 this morning, surprised me with another credit card bill, a pack of coupons for cigarette discounts, and your new glasses. You peeled 5 month old contact lenses from your eyes and set those rectangular frames on your nose. I fell in love with you all over again. At lunchtime, you phoned me at work, promised me a sinkful of clean dishes and a divine supper when I got home. I could smell the dishsoap and orange chicken, the odors growing more pungent as quitting time neared. At 5:30 I walked through the door, saw you at the sink, hurriedly soaping plates and utensils, the chicken thawing in the microwave. When you professed yourself a house husband, I said that I had something different in mind. You could only smile and throw your wet hands around my waist. The rest of the evening proceeded as usual, into the bedroom and up onto my grand bed, a cherry wood, four poster, queen-sized cloud lifted three feet off the floor. The TV went on, channels flipping like enthusiastic gymnasts. We bantered, drank beer, fretted over money. The 11 o'clock news came and went... it was best ignored anyhow. I find my own life to be the most interesting current event, a bevy of domestic let downs and glories. Madelaine Sauk