Submission #20 to the New Yorker:

 

Kissing John McPhee

By Kiersten Conner-Sax

 

Kiss me, John McPhee,

and take me fly fishing.

Let us go to the long-dammed river of a red state

and use it for ardor's playground.

Cavorting in the white rapids,

splashing in the wet wet wet water while

tempting the fish (whom you protest to love)

to bite, hard, at an illusion, later

tearing a barbed hook through the flesh of a lip,

and then, at night, holding me while we assay

the warm guts before the fire.

 

Kiss me, John McPhee, and teach me of your lures.

 

Tell me of the days in New Jersey, deep in the pine barrens,

or of oranges or zeppelins or cattle rustlings,

Bill Bradley in a bark canoe

and geology!

Rocks, rocks, everywhere you turn!

Why, turn over a rock, and you find

another rock...

 

Kiss me, John McPhee, and take me

into your tectonic-plated world

of sailing ships and prose-colored pages,

Princeton and everything else

almost

too fine to see.

 

 

 

 

©2005 by Kiersten Conner-Sax

From "50 Tries" at kiersten.connersax.com