Jennifer Lagier- Three Poems

Lunar Eclipse

 

It’s midnight and I'm high on

chardonnay and adrenaline.

We watch night’s crawling shadow

above Half Moon Bay,

feel any sense of responsibility

being quickly erased.

 

You steer one-armed, tires clunking

against highway reflectors,

fingers inside each other’s clothes,

both of us igniting at sixty miles an hour

like teenage lunatics.

 

Tonight I want nothing more

than to slide beneath your hands

in this clockless universe,

smell love upon my skin

while ghostly hills pass.

 

 

Previously published in Curbside Review.

 

 

 

Sex Education in the Summer of Love

It’s a warm Central Valley night.

You are a 16 year old Italian Catholic virgin,

half undressed, wedged between bucket seats

of your boyfriend’s blue Mustang.

After months of his begging, you finally give in.

As he tears his way into you,

a drunk careens from the river bank,

peers through the windshield,

passes out on the car hood.

 

So this is passion,

the romantic act of becoming one

you tell yourself

despite embarrassment, pain.

Outside, the homeless bum twitches.

You wonder what happens now,

feel you’ve been cheated.

 

 

Previously published in the Rockford Review.

 

 

 

Moonstone Beach Bar & Grill

 

Chopped Harleys and Indians

create their own rules.

Jesus co-pilots the biker babe

at a neighboring table.

 

We sip Rosarita Margaritas,

slide the weight of traffic jams

and work-day disasters

from our tense shoulders.

 

Black birds beg at the feet

of burly men in slick leathers.

I envy their mounds of golden fries,

thick, greasy burgers.

 

Fog wipes sunlight from a sky

littered with seagulls.

Tourists shiver, discover

coastal summer is actually winter.

 

I explore every port,

a ship without anchor,

order a second round,

scribble truth on a napkin.

 

 

 

Jennifer Lagier is a central valley and coastal snake connoisseur.