Two Poems from Renee Pollock

Janelle


thin, fragment of a girl,
all of her 27 years playing in the light about her skin,
brown-ruminations and tranquil ideologies homegrown and softer than her meta-speech;
i will hunt the train rides of the city to find her face musing there,
in the masses, a ghost shifting between worlds,
pressing hope into me.




Ora Eckstein, Avenue C Stop


she holds herself inward, enclosing herself,
like an envelope clutched to her stomach

hands fetchingly beautiful

against her long black skirt
that hangs, well-ironed but oddly-proportioned, mid-calf.

hair as soft as the glint from newly polished brass,
brown strands tamed under a flower-patterned headscarf, pretty.

the bus is crowded today.
i ease my way into a newly vacated seat,
trying not to eye her obtrusively.

a curt nod of the head - she recognizes me -
from the Center, where we first met that September
associates in passing,
me always curious, she always in a hurry.

her navy blue sweater beckons to me,
and her skin echoes into me.
i wonder if she is her mother’s only daughter, her father’s headache,
whether they know of her fondness for her own sex.

i have sensed this. known this.
beautiful Ora, too scared to talk to me after the quiet gasps
and gropes in the Center’s bathroom,
thin-wristed, pale, love-hungry Ora;
Ora kissing my neck, Ora’s lips parting to suckle,
brown-eyed, responsible, traditional Ora,
Ora the unknown stranger who keeps herself apart;

dear Ora -
you are never as far apart as you seem to be.


Renee Pollock is an aspiring artist and poetess who works assembling fabricated sculpture. She has never been published. She resides and studies life in Brooklyn, NY.

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