Alison Dunne

INSTRUCTION

Take oil and pour it in your hand,
some bland carrier -- grapeseed or almond
then drops of volatile lavender.

Go against the grain,
spine base to neck, thumb circle --
make muscle surrender its knots.

I am not a cat, or wood or velvet.
Your hands can't take the nap
of me -- disturbing it.

When you are done
lie close behind, between us
only oil and heat.

Don't speak louder than a whisper.
I am opened up.

Date of Birth: April, 1964 Location: Market Harborough, England Occupation: Adult Education Tutor Email: ivoryfishbone@yahoo.com Publications: QWF Magazine, Tees Valley Writer, Stirring, The Nerve: The Virago Book of Writing Women (Virago 1998), London at Dawn (Metro Publishing 2002), Broadcast on BBC Radio 4

- October 2002 - Conjugating Anatomies After the Flood Instruction Hey You Kids, Get That Dirty Bomb Off My Lawn! Oven-sun Bus Stop breasts Bread and Tulips A Son Born To A Family of Women variation on pollock's cathedral Leonardo’s Notebooks - Poetry by Current & Former Editors - Charming Jenna Sept. 10th the things we do for Kings must end sometime Song Leftovers I'm learning to love haiku Valet Parking at the Salvation Army Shark in Sheep’s Clothing - Stirring's Best From Year Three - Killing Cattle for Disease, Greeley, 1998 Dear Anna Body Parts for Art Hogs Loosed En Route to Slaughter Trying to Raise the Dead Groundhog Day