Maurice Oliver

NOW CHEW ON THAT FOR AWHILE

She walks in double-breasted to the stove then slowly
turns around and says this has nothing to do with
boiling the water or even sipping it from a cup or
bowl if you were in France and don't think it has
anything to do with being tall or thin or very tall
and thin or the white on black patterns of polka-dots
in a flamenco dancer's skirt or two eyes wide shut
then outlined in red or even a T-shirt mule riding a
ferris wheel and don't even consider that it's related
in any way to coral beach sand shot on location for a
movie scene but then shot again in a studio this time
enhanced by a wind machine but I admit it does have to
do with the infinite power of maybeyourbabytonight
that smells faintly of mildewed pup-tents and could
write my whole life on a sheet of notepaper and still
not express the undeniable ambiguous charm associated
with my level of all-embracing consciousness and a
nearly forgotten muse and you a snare almost won.

Then she pulls the home-made patchwork quilt toga
tighter around her shoulders winks once and heads for
to the dimly-lit bedroom.

Maurice Oliver spent almost a decade working as a freelance photographer in Europe. Then, in 1995, he made a lifelong dream reality by traveling around the world for eight months, recording his experiences in a journal instead of photographs. And so began his desire to be a poet. His poetry has appeared in The Potomac Journal, Circle Magazine, Bullfight Review, Tryst3 Journal, The MAG, Eye-Shot, The Surface, One Forty Two Magazine, Word Riot, Retort Magazine(Australia), Taj Mahal Review(India), Stride Magazine(UK),& online at ink-mag.com, friggmagazine.com, dash30dash.com & tmpoetry.com. He lives in Portland, Oregon where he is a tutor.