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THREE POEMS
by David Lehman

The Lady is a Tramp

Everyone is someone
else in this city the
actress waits tables
the professor is a fake
the carpenter sculpts
& the nude in the painting
is a painter I happen to know
the cop with the baby face
is a student, the astronaut
a motivational speaker,
the anthropologist a spy
the oil baron a philanderer
the gangster a philanthropist
the heiress a stripper
& the general who stood haughty
but was always at heart a soldier
is the maitre d' ready to hail
a cab for the princess

4 /19 / 02



Republican Cloth Coat

I tell her she'd
look good in anything.
I'd tell her "cuir"
is French for leather.
I'd tell her "cuir" is
"queer" in French
I'd tell her I'd never
call her cunt a cunt.
If I bought her
a cigarette boat
we'd call it "Clitoris."
I tell her she'd
look good in anything.
I'd tell her she has
a little girl dick
and she'd believe me.

6 / 30 / 02



Feeling Fucked

We need more sonnets more capital gains
fewer pills for our pains and more fever
for Lois Lanes at the bar I complimented her
on her shapely ass and counted the ways
it belongs to you who sit on it and the ways
it belongs to me who look with my phallic gaze
which I've concealed in a jock like a cock
and don't you want to see it
naked like the fleeting side of the moon
What we need is sonnets and clouds
to lift us beyond our lofts beyond the brain
so the woman is equal to her fragrant pussy
the body equal to the brain and when you're fucked
you feel fucked and beautifully properly totally so

8 / 5 / 02