Letters

By Kimee E. Santiago
May 14, 2008
Hey.

I got your e-mail.

They’re more like notices

Getting shorter as they come

Like I am a transaction.

I’m sorry it took me a day

To respond.

Had to go through the letters

You used to send me. I keep them in a

Bundle, Dear, by my pillow.

Tied loosely with the rosepoint sash

Of my night gown unwashed

Since you left.

How much do stamps cost now?

I knew you better when

Your illegible cursives would

Stroke me gently and

Then I would feel how you went

Through your day as your

Loops and tittles sigh with

The release of your pen.

And I would lean back, relieved

With pages consumed by your presence.

Before resealing your letters

I’d taste you in the flap.

Hair in my Skirt

By Kimee E. Santiago
May 14, 2008

I tug at a stray thread

Dangling from my skirt hem.

It stretches, as the cloth

Ripples with resistance.

It breaks to coil into a frizzed

Ringlet and announce

It is hair, not thread.

For a year of wears-and-washes

My skirt kept a secret:

It has life stitched in it

Peeking into me, into a spot

Most honest and pure.

Saturday

By Kimee E. Santiago

So it’s another Saturday when hanging on to your bag

As your most accessible companion you

Pore over bestsellers only to put titles down

Denouncing bookstores for selling rubbish

Bound, reviewed and shamelessly called books that

Shuffling through racks of clothing

is a better mind-feed of tasteless effects magnified

by snobbish brands branding you nameless

no more, hiding subordination under skirt

tucking fucking bills and bosses into belt loops with

your fingers like one hooks index and thumb

on a cup of coffee and company, where you wish these

bills bosses boredom would all go swirling and

dying in dilution but hell no---

your coffee has more water than coffee

your table for two is table for you

alone after another Saturday of fruitlessly shopping

for good conversation.