Three Poems

by Douglas Empringham

1 Before you leave the shower stall you pause. And with your hands sweep the water

from your scarfskin

You are well anointed with summer

And the band of paleness

at the center

of your sun-dyed height is like

the pale band

at the center of a bow

2 Our bed linen

is white

But it does not suggest purity. For the whiteness of our linen think

of a blindman's cane

Or of a flag used to surrender

3 With your legs drawn up Your thighs are

as loose as swarms of bees Unadorned with a quarter-cowl Your unicorn-device seems as precarious as soap sculpture

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