Issue 1 • Spring 2002 • Poetry

Put Your Whole Self In

Malka Geffen

Would you mind holding perfectly still just in case I need to be here again and it would be nice to not be alone? I define terms in degrees. File ego and sensitivity behind the links in the freezer. I wonder, if we all make the same mistake at least twice, what of the ones we don't recognize? Do you see how your eyes look at me? Isn't it just that I love the way my lips feel your skin, never mind that it feels good to kiss you? And is the hokey-pokey even a game I can play by myself? Turn yourself around while I'm peeing; you're simply not ready for that kind of commitment.

Malka Geffen is working toward an MFA in creative writing at Mills College in Oakland, California. She moved to the Bay Area in 1997 from Tucson, Arizona where she was born and bred. Besides writing poetry and enjoying the lifestyle, Malka plays drums and considers her future unemployment with a furrowed brow.

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