#6

Open your hands and touch me/touch me here
Show me the exact spot/where your fingers are
It is the phenomenon of you/that I want to remember
Touch me so that/it will not lead to anything
So I will not love you/come on top of me
Feel my hand there as you touch me/there are these things
Things that can’t be spoken/I want to hear the whole song of you
In my mind/forget the words
Push past the words/make it quick with your mouth and I’ll go
How do I make sense of this/the semantics of my body
How one body moves/inside another
I will tell you that I am the sea/an almost-language of blue
Bodies and wings/we open up into the sea
I can smell it all over you/this is your mother tongue
Speak it to me/mouth these words so I will understand
This is the meaning of everything/the world in this sea, this song

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#15

I am a woman with her legs spread open/ watching you
Look through your
Pockets for the plane tickets. You are in bed with a woman
With her legs spread open. The nightstand is covered/with
Crushed almonds and fresh caviar. We are leaving
In an hour. Can you see
How red it is between my legs. This is the part that
Is connected straight
To my brain. Next to the woman with her
Legs spread open/the lights of passing cars flash/through
The window. And in this moment
Abstraction is killed. There is nothing left but this light/and I feel
A little nearer/to something.

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Biography

Ann Pedone graduated from Bard College with a degree in English. She received a Master’s Degree in Chinese Language and Literature from UC Berkeley. Ann is the author of the chapbook The Bird Happened, and the forth-coming chapbook perhaps there is a sky we don’t know: a re-imagining of sappho. (Cup and Dagger Press.) Her work has recently appeared in Riggwelter, Ethel Zine, Poet head, The Wax Paper, The Phare, West Trade Review, The Open Page Literary Journal, Slipstream, and Rogue Agent, among others.