SAPPHO'S QUESTIONNAIRE

Does your skin flame? Do all your senses roar?
At his first touch, did you turn instant whore?

And do your eyes cloak out all sounds but his?
Does thin fire steal through your limbs at his kiss?

Does your tongue falter, darkness shroud your eyes?
Can you recall how, once, you locked your thighs?

And now that you are opened to his key
are you the slave to passion - or is he?

Ah! woman washing up, whose love needs testing,
d'you tremble for Adonis, feet up, resting?


SATURDAY RITUAL

Sharp breeze, a load of last week's clothes, still wet
from 'Coloureds: Heavy Soil', that's programme six,
90 degrees in 'Kwic-Kleen Launderette'
where washing dirty linen in public's
the norm.  We swap confessions, gossip, Daz,
the air is steamy with our churning heat,
we leave behind the blood and sweat and as
I take the peg-bag, shake out the first sheet,
I smell detergent cleanness on the wind.
Tonight the pillowslips will dream afresh;
pants, vests, bras, socks flap hope as they are pinned
like empty bits of people.  My earthed flesh
    knows the catharsis of the laundromat;
    your shirt sleeve links with mine.  Let's stay like that.


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