Steven Kunert- Three Poems

Drinking on the Oregon Coast

The ocean is gray as I’ve ever seen it.

Black storm clouds—the weatherman said

lightning and thunder were possible

this late afternoon in Yachats, a rare event

here—have rendered the Pacific this bleak hue.

I’m reminded that a few weeks ago two fishermen

out for halibut from Depoe Bay disappeared in a storm,

their old boat all the Coast Guard found.

Now there are big white breakers heading continually

toward the shore, bright waves to mitigate the bland dark water.

I’ve been sipping Wild Turkey all afternoon, I’ll admit.

And now those breakers feel like human souls to me—rolling, spiraling

and speaking nautical words, words I never would have comprehended

had I not taken in the revelations from this bottle

I plan to keep working on until dusk is almost dawn.

Only Anna

explored my entire body,

for three years

surveying from scalp

to toes.

No other lover

was such a topographer.

Only Anna comprehensively

mapped my geography.

She’s long dead,

her traversing fingers

and perusing palms

handed back to earth.

And my body is old

and different, a revised atlas,

Anna’s cartography

forever archived.

Tantalization

When I want to see you naked,

I look at you in clothes.

When I want to hear your voice,

I listen to your silence.

When I want to touch you,

I take my fingers away.

When I want to taste you,

for instance, the skin around your nipples,

I demand my tongue dance,

like an airborne ballerina,

her toe circling two pink planets,

an agile satellite probing,

never landing, relishing wanted unknowns

I already know so well.

BIO: Steven Kunert has written and published poetry and prose for over 35 years, most recently in The Apeiron Review, Wordriver, Fogged Clarity, Poetry Super Highway, Six Sentences, decomP and Word Riot.