The Thinking
From the stem he pulled one—
plucked, she thought, thinking
of the better word. Not purple,
but almost purple, as if fog
had stuck to its skin. (Its bloom,
she’d have thought, had she known
the term.) A small, round,
almost purple grape, plucked.
He smiled. She closed her eyes,
opened her mouth. Nothing
not to trust. (Is that what
she thought, if she did think?)
Salt from his fingers. Brine,
the wrong word, she thought.
On her tongue his rough skin.
Then grape skin, smooth,
taut, holding the flavor in.
That was then, when again
she let him. Each plucked thing.
No matter who he was. Not
asking. Not speaking. Never
saying No. Always opening. First
the mouth. The rough, the smooth,
the taut. Then the body. Letting him.
Not even letting herself think.
Now I do the thinking. A sea
of difference. No, sea change.
Always find the right word.
And say it. A fog lifts.
Now sometimes I change
the language, choose
better words for the scene
that always did not change
despite different weather,
different wallpaper.
Now I write. Often before I think.
I rub off the bloom, peel away
the skin. Words can change
thought, alter memory. Even
the score. So I let her go ahead
and think what she knows
she should have been thinking.
Let her use her teeth. Bite hard
on that rough salt. Savor
the blood.
Andrea Hollander moved to Portland, Oregon, in 2011, after living for more than three decades in the Arkansas Ozarks, where she was innkeeper of a bed & breakfast for 15 years and the Writer-in-Residence at Lyon College for 22. Hollander’s 5th full-length poetry collection was a finalist for the Best Book Award in Poetry from the American Book Fest; her 4th was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award; her 1st won the Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize. Her poems and essays appear widely in anthologies, college textbooks, and literary journals, including a recent feature in The New York Times Magazine. Other honors include two Pushcart Prizes (in poetry and literary nonfiction) and two fellowships in poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2017 she initiated the Ambassador Writing Seminars, which she conducts in her home (and since March 2020 on Zoom). Her website is www.andreahollander.net.