diversity of queer women's poetic experience: love poems: Vanessa Marzan Deza (girl falls for girl)

[alexconall]

Michelle couldn't let Lien's invitation pass, of course. She tracked down and gave to Lien a poem expressing exactly how she'd felt the moment she met Lien.

distractions
Vanessa Marzan Deza

oh excuse me i'm sorry
didn't mean to stare at your
honey-colored fingers
grasping the tip of a red pen
and think about how i want them
interlocked around my waist

oh yes we are in a meeting here
let me just button up my shirt and
cross my legs and try not to notice
how nicely yours curve into the chair

okay let me just focus my gaze
on the rim of this coffee cup
so i don't see your breasts brushing
up against the hardwood table as you
lean forward to make your point.

i speak to impress you
bring two fingers up to my lips
in mock seriousness
"hmm...yes, uhuh, is that so?"
i nod as you reply
and move your hands in eloquence
i am concentrating on the way
your mouth forms the words
pursing the o's
popping the p's
and i'm wishing i was a letter
caught between your teeth and
sliding between your lips
but all i can do is nod and go
hmm...yes, that's right
uhuh....yes
yes.
yes.
yes.

Vanessa Marzan Deza is Pinay—Filipina—and writes, according to her bio, "grounded in her particular context as colored and female. It is a conscious act of resistance and creative envisioning."

Let me look away, Deza wrote. I didn't mean to stare, and there is work to do. But I don't want, Michelle told Lien, to look away.


Source: The Very Inside: An Anthology of Writing by Asian and Pacific Islander Lesbian and Bisexual Women, edited by Sharon Lim-Hing

Comments

[alee_grrl]

What a beautiful poem. This is one that begs to be read out loud.

[alexconall]

It does!