your slightly lemony smell

Don't think I spend my nights brooding
about your
freckled lips, smeared with fig jam.
Or your velvety
ear lobes. The way they taste of sea salt
and celery
never occupies my mind for hours at a time.
I've more chaste
things to meditate on, like the raft my son is roping
together down
by the lake, and whether it's even remotely seaworthy.
I am not
thinking about the biblical gardens of your armpits,
your slightly lemony
smell, the three white hairs sprouting from your right
eyebrow,
the coming storm in all its voluptuous glory.
I am merely
sitting on this itchy patch of beach grass, watching geese
land on sandbars,
recalling last night's dream, in which P.F. demanded
I write
a poem entitled "The History of English Lettuces."
This isn't it.

[Amy Gerstler, 'Denial', from Ghost Girl]