SEAN THIBODEAU


Washing off a day at the beach,


I pretended to admire the colorful soaps-
Inhale the exotic named (cellophane wrapped) seashell shaped soaps
Dusk. Rain. Lemon Chiffon. Night. And all I could

think of were coconut and ocean. She had
a back scratcher and something
that came in a tube with pictures of
small withered cucumbers on it.

The sun had rubbed her red;
drawing pink from her brown
and golden over pale. Its muzzle
still grazed upon her back.

A round round freckle clung to her chest, right
below her crucifix. Another quivered
alongside her lip, another spilled out
onto her thigh, fixing me.

I had followed her into the bath.
I wanted to trail my nose along her rim,
lean down and inhale her
poached porcelain skin.

I was sure it'd smell
like suntan lotion-
a concoction of coconut
and ocean. I could lose
myself in the grease.



Postposition


What was there? A road wound itself along the conifers.
A car wound itself along the road. Its driver was intent
Upon arriving, before the dark wound itself along all.

He had taken his car along, among, around, at,

because of what he had left behind-her hair
lying on his pillow, her lying.

The conifers were mum. That could be said.
He looked intent on the line of the road and

lined his road toward his intent:
to bring it all back again-new
think it all into a refrain never

yielding her; never refraining
from yielding beauty;

but couldn't,

simply couldn't,
before that dark
wound his breath

around his diminishing
thoughts: there was what?

before
beyond
during



Rotunda


It never occurred

to me, you might
incite me to
tread my dreams

searching for your eyes
to swallow and soothe
our lumped throat.

It never helps

to whine, I know, but their
blue sheen repents their time
spent inside me, as soon as the day shi-

fts, and all I accomplished in my
search but couldn't bring
with me laughs at all I brought

with me but couldn't

accomplish. You

make me blush at the word
blue.





Love and Ink
(Q&A)


"Where do you go Again I'm lost
to write your poems, for words don't
I mean where are help when I
you when your poems hold your head
are being born not and try to feel
necessarily in this world our thoughts
a place or a town and find me
more where are your poems inside you
born inside the shell like you
you call body or humm are inside
you term mind or thrumm of me.
that beats spirit?"
". . . So."
I find my

poems in the hypothermic Just believe me
shiver running along my spine when I tell you
just before your smell fills my life
my pillow or days later is a mess but
when there is no trace. around your fringe
I find courage
"What the fuck is all that?"
enough to put pen to
I couldn't write
another line and have line after line of
enough to fill the line love and ink
between curve and point as if they could exist
of your question. together.


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