Timothy Liu – Two Poems


Timothy Liu

Two Poems

Dirty


             As wives across America settle into
rerun mode. As their frequent-flyer
             husbands deplane in a podunk town—
                           pockets full of skin-flick brass. Hot
             for dick and liking it too—world-class
poolside abs keeping me from Paul
             Celan—the ashen hair of Shulamite
                           no match for hunky jizz. The pathos
             of my being here probing a stranger’s
ass—crack-stench left on a wedding
             band that won’t come off with soap.


Doom Queens

My student who said he felt
so “Sylvia Plath” (winding-up

on a stretcher heading towards

the morgue) was in my office
just hours before with his paper

in my lap, and I wanted him

to drop the course right there
instead of my getting stoned

on his weed, laughing aloud

about Anne Sexton sunk deep
into her drink, having been

denied her Guggie once again—

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