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In the Serengeti, dark of the moon, a man
with a candle and plaid pants
stands outside my tent serenading me with
songs about a rhino and an elephant.
unspoiled like the Garden of Eden, a Rousseau tropic
where unclothed bodies entwine on gaudy blankets
Each trip some would-be suitor pleads his case.
Here: Peter. Charles on the Yang-Tze.
In Egypt, Hans. Zuck on the Colorado.
Two-week suitors with ill-fitted suits.
the Southern Cross leads us through star-rivers
as hippos exhale in the slough and I hold my breath
In the tent, my husband plumps his pillow,
repositions hot bricks at his feet
and, saying kisses-good-night-and-love-you,
ignores the singing, drifts toward sleep.
yes, touch me there and there and hold me tightly
as comets arc and iridescent beetles click their wings
At first light, we all gaze into Ngorongoro
noting the difference between a crater
and a caldera. Actually, only the man in plaid
and I are talking. My husband, bemused, listens.
Susan Terris's poetry collection, Fire Is Favorable to the Dreamer, was published by Arctos Press in 2003, and was recently named “Best Poetry Book of 2003" by the Bay Area Independent Publishers Association. In 2004, Adastra Press will publish a letterpress edition of her chapbook, Poetic Licence, and Marsh Hawk Press will publish her third full-length book, Natural Defenses. Other recent books of poetry are: (La Jolla Poets Press, 1998), Eye of the Holocaust (Arctos Press, 1999), and Angels of Bataan (Pudding House Publications, 1999). Recent fiction: Nell’s Quilt (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). Her publications include The Antioch Review, The Drunken Boat, The Midwest Quarterly, New Works Review, Ploughshares, Poetrybay, Calyx, Shenandoah, Hunger Mountain, Missouri Review, and Southern California Anthology. With CB Follett, she is co-editor of an annual anthology, Runes, A Review Of Poetry. She has had fifteen poems nominated for Pushcart Awards. She is the 2003 winner of the George Bogin Award offered by the Poetry Society of America. Further information is available on her website: http://members.aol.com/sdt11.
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