"Sluices"

It is decided you must be my muse, a pliable combination of two of the nine daughters of Zeus, Erato Melpomene, for the sight of your face contrives tragedy wrapped in a delicate sheath of sensuality, it's voiceless song needling into my ears, smoke curling through the sluices of my brain, a toxic vapor of creativity that chokes hold of me before I can even realize it is done. Aleathia Drehmer 2007

"Rivalry"

I was allowed to sleep in this morning, awaking to soft sunshine, silence. I stretched out like a cat trying to move the dreams from deep in my muscles. Your words lingering still, haloed loosely around my ears, a touch gold, a slight of hand that rivals Midas for every pound he was worth. Aleathia Drehmer 2007

"Mole"

I like that it is my fate to haphazardly stumble upon your poems, never directed in a proper fashion, always groping in the air a mole coming to the surface to discover one more facet to your multiplicable personality. Aleathia Drehmer 2007

"Fly Away"

The old road is barren in early morning, the friction of tires on the pavement making visceral noises. Mist raises its arms to meet a dense, hovering fog making love to wiry, green tendrils of kudzu, both laughing at the world, strangling underbrush and trees post coitus. A centrifugal sound escapes the spokes of my white bicycle, I am a ghost speeding down the slope, curved like a woman’s lips, soft and dangerous standing on the pedals at break neck speed. Dew invigorated with magnolia, wrapped in honeysuckle, hits my face delicate as soap bubbles releasing the nectar onto my skin and I fly away. Aleathia Drehmer 2007

"Fissures"

I am an automaton in the future of my life, driving in blinding darkness with half-closed lids. This road a cracked tongue fissures like infinite gaps in the earth, its’ moist, dark tunnel ripe with rot. A river of sticky, blue saliva drips from the ruggulated palate onto the windshield, a prickly heat surrounding me as a fetid breath at my back pushes me into the light. Aleathia Drehmer 2007

"The Remains of Men"

Sitting in the high grass of a meadow, once a battlefield saturated with blood of young men, fighting for pride and boundaries, bodies crossed, stacked like twigs for a fire. The remains of men adhere to my hands as I clap two sticks together, gathered from this graveyard, creating ragged tunes making syncopated beats soft harmonic voices lifting into the summer heat. Aleathia Drehmer 2007 Upcoming Publication by The Cerebral Catalyst

"Take"

I am folded into this neat circle of newly adopted friends of friends. Innocently, they lend acceptance into my hands that I will surely take for granted. Aleathia Drehmer 2007 Published by Gloom Cupboard (online #16) 1/08

"Perfect Eggs"

I breakfasted in a diner where the waitresses know the names of every war veteran that sets to chow and they have intertwined themselves into the fabric of their history. On a simple white plate, I am served the most perfect eggs I have eaten in years, two slabs of thick, rye toast with enough butter to negate my workout from the night before, coffee hot and strong with enough depth to cure my tiredness. This is savored amidst the mingling of laughter from old women at the jocular conversations between their husbands, silverware clanging, tips in aprons sounding wealthy as change is muffled by folded dollar bills. Middle aged women shouting orders, greetings, and questions of accommodation hit me pleasingly as it has been some time since I settled into a barstool alone to write listening to the sounds of my childhood, my heart clattering with the silver, wishing I still lived with the responsibility of saving conversations instead of saving lives. Aleathia Drehmer 2007

"Apathy"

Words form a labyrinth encircling my head trapped in mid-air by the thick heat collected in my car while I was sleeping. This road is straight, a fine country stretch trees reaching out to me green budded fingers a temptation for dreaming, bugs kamikaze on the windshield, on the grill reminds me of all the death I witness daily. Coltrane splits the hairs of my inner ear, sweet chaotic melodies elevating my brain's chemical levels above the tidal line, traveling the opposite direction through the maze around my head. I am oblivious to the world, apathetic to its' dangers. Aleathia Drehmer 2007

"Collision"

Sitting with book in hand, careened forward as my mind diverges out the open window, elevated into the same biting wind that turns nail beds blue and ripples my skin. I sense your phantom hands upon my mouth, an invisible collision of energy paralyzing me in my already transient state, knees strapping me down to the chair. The weight of you evident, suffocating me in primal pleasure until I must laugh at my illusion, your delusion of grandeur. Aleathia Drehmer 2007 Published by Hecale 7/07

"What I Have to Offer"

This wet stain hovering above the stripes on the sheets, cool to my fleshy thigh, reminds me that I can still illicit a reaction from you, that what I have to offer still excites, still drives your sex to rise against the coup of domestication. Aleathia Drehmer 2007

"Nearer"

There is something about your eyes that frightens me, moves me to want to turn and run away. Yet the shape of your mouth, pursed from smile, full of need and longing, draws me nearer still. Aleathia Drehmer 2007

"Blemish"

There is something in the graceless movements of my mind that traps me close and tight to a thought, unceasing, unending, squeezing life from it one small escaped breath at a time. I am put to pasture with one nick to its’ garden hose feeding tube, blood pulsating through the blemish, still graceless and bleeding it dry until it never was. Aleathia Drehmer 2007 Published by The Outsider Writers 6/07

"Unintended"

My eyes have a hard time looking at your face, it reminds me of this struggle to find a place between us that does not push me over the edge. I have never been good at separating emotion from logic, they run over each other, wet paints on canvas smearing and bleeding into something lethally poisonous and unintended. Aleathia Drehmer 2007 Published by Zygote in My Coffee Issue 89

"Plateaus"

Every time my tongue touches mango I am reminded of ice storms, trapped in my apartment with booze and loud music, laughter dominating the night. One woman needs above all other needs, a mango and her lover braves black ice for her desires. The fruit is smooth, heavy in my palm smelling of islands with colors of squawking tropical parrots. I watch her deftly slice the skin into boats exposing saffron flesh being divvied into tiny squares with a sharp blade then inverted into plateaus. I place it to my lips, sweetness is interlaced with peppery undertones that moves me as the juice sticky and sensual runs down my chin. Aleathia Drehmer 2007 Published by Amarillo Bay 2/08

"Assailant"

Warm water assails the crown of my head cascading my forehead, runnels forming over closed eyelids, eyelashes a penetrable barrier leading to into a valley made by nose and cheekbone. Droplets pooling in the cleft of my upper lip, one solitary precarious drop slides down into the corner of my mouth. Aleathia Drehmer 2007 Published by Juice 6/07