Under His Breath, He Says
Their lips are conditioned like
athletes, supple, stretched, pursed or
lounging like satisfied cats across
their faces. Their legs are smooth as
new-paved road, eyes liquid pools
with unruly currents. Sometimes
they smell like blood and look at us
like we are prey. Look at them, all
long, feral nails and cherry-slick smiles.
Of course we are afraid.
________________
Colleen S. Harris
Review by Marc Janssen
This is a tricky poem in that the title sets up that three plus stanzas are someone’s dialog or soliloquy. Wonderful descriptions describing people without naming them. Adding it all up the poet is having this man describe women and in that impressive description end with “of course we were afraid.” Which is genius and pretty much true.
Review by Jared Pearce
What is not said in this poem helps the energy and, toward the end, the threat. It is unclear exactly who or what the he is describing, but I do like those satisfied cats lounging across its face/s, and that mystery, I think, makes the poem all the more worrisome.
Review by Philip Kirsch
As I read it this displays the problematic dynamic that males often apply to women, objectifying them in a different manner than the overtly sexual, nevertheless putting distance between them. The “he” of the poem is applying assumption after assumption to the woman he is looking at, and in the process making her into something mysterious, “feral,” and frightening; “of course [he is] afraid.” We beg him to just get up and talk to her; what “relationship” could otherwise possibly come of this?
Well done, as the pictures drawn are fresh and precise (“lips…conditioned like athletes,” legs…smooth as new-paved road,” “eyes liquid pools with unruly currents”), and the poem itself brutal and to the point.
Review by Massimo Fantuzzi
if there is a river / more beautiful than this / bright as the blood / red edge of the moon… (from Lucille Clifton, poem in praise of menstruation)
Another tale. The other. The other to whom we attribute mystical, divine, predatory, alluring qualities. We are drawn in, whispering, we profess our attraction. But it is fear that binds us. The other holds the mirror: we see ourselves, our vulnerability, our violence, reflected in her liquid pools with unruly currents, in her feral nails, in the cherry gleam of her smile. What we fear is relinquishing our control and boundaries and having to share what is infinite.