Egg Money Poets - 11/13/11

Five by Seven Glossy
Suzanne Frank
© 2011

A 5x7 glossy of Sophia Loren appears
from time to time in your apartment.

She could be anywhere--on top of a stack
of a dusty books, perilously close

to the kitchen stove, curled on the window ledge.
Most recently, I found her drying on your porch

after you rescued her from the basement flood,
a cloudy veil of water stain from eyes to flaring nostrils,

a ghost of blue ink across her high forehead from
a grocery list. She surfaces like a dog bone

buried in the garden, the sudden white a surprise
among the petunias. That's how I feel when Sophia

rises from the rubble, Cleopatra eyes, voluminous hair,
endless neck--a hint of nudity just outside the frame.

It's easy to see why you nearly swoon when you
watch her movies--the torn peasant blouse falling

off her shoulder, earthy smudge of dirt on her cheek.
I think you mean to throw her out someday,

Or worse found by a trash picker who pulls her out with
his red chapped hand and tucks her inside his coat,

and you would hear her call out to you, in Italian,
to save her one more time.