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-upon a stretcher heading towards
the morgue) was in my office
just hours before with his paperin my lap, and I wanted him
to drop the course right there
instead of my getting stonedon his weed, laughing aloud
about Anne Sexton sunk deep
into her drink, having beendenied her Guggie once again—