Tiffanie Desmangles

At the YMCA

I’m alone in the pool when a man wheels
     out of the locker room
          and stops at the deep end.

Scoots to the edge of his seat, lifts each leg,
     and pushes away
          from his chair.

Like an anchor, he sinks to the bottom.
     Three minutes pass, and just when
          I think he needs my help,

he pops to the top with a giddy-up, like Poseidon
     in his chariot of war,
          risen from Atlantis,

his torso buoyed above the water line, arms cutting
     through a million grains of water,
          that come apart

as they come together. And suddenly, I’m racing
     him down the two lanes,
          separated by a common desire

to prove how the other will fall short.
     In this wave of pride
          that envelops each creature

in its path, from whale to boat to man, with its steady
     and patient pulling,
          as if gently removing

the tangles from our hair, before it pushes
          us out of the way.

 

Dreaming

In the cemetery at night,
I come across a body,

eyes closed, lips parted, a thin
sheet spread over thighs and hips,

the color of the moon shining down.
Her bare torso arches toward the stars.

I trace the creases along marble
feet, each toe round, without callous,

and I remember how your
left breast settled toward your ribs,

a perfect mound of soft flesh.
even if these are pocked

concrete, dissolving in the rain.
The pine needles scatter through

this bed, the flames of your auburn hair
suddenly sending up a chill.

No longer do I fear being
attracted to you.

We’ll never touch again,
not in that fiery and trembling way.

 

Ode to My Neighbor Bill

My neighbor has driven a stick through two moles
and stuck them in his front yard.
A retired Air Force captain, he keeps the bushes
crew-cut and the grass as lush as the lawns
found in Easter ads, children holding hot pink eggs.
He claims these scaremoles will deter future mole families
from settling in, a tradition passed down
from his Indian grandmother, whose tribe he can’t recall.
Though I imagine if she were alive today,
she would’ve poisoned them and been done with it,
or partially buried a wine bottle in their tunnel.
The mole hears the wind blowing over the neck
as a pack of wolves howling at a pack of coyotes,
in competition for food.  Like we’re back
in the Wild West, except this public hanging
has lasted for weeks, their matted, rain-soaked fur
peeling from their bodies. But, the rakes and shovels
of their claws have been put away for the winter.
Their pink snouts point to the ground
from which they came, and I really can’t
understand why he doesn’t bury the damn things.
Now the wind blows their stink through our street.
Bill, I can’t tell if you’re a cowboy,
looking for a showdown, or a man trying
to keep people away. A scarecrow incarnate.

Tiffanie Desmangles is a native of Missouri but currently lives with her husband and two children in West Lafayette, Indiana. She has been a social worker for nine years, helping the mentally ill. She is a recent graduate of The MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.