The Blue Grotto
Rachel Jamison Webster
dancing girl press, 2009


Rachel Jamison Webster grew up in Northeastern Ohio and now lives in Evanston, Illinois, with her partner Richard and their daughter. She teaches at Northwestern University and edits the online anthology of international poetry, www.universeofpoetry.org. More writing is available at http://racheljamisonwebster.blogspot.com.


Priváta Café


Out with you on a mirror-slick evening
in this place I’ve never seen before

a trill of fear and thrill strums up my legs
as Nina Simone carves shapes out of silence

and our voices, ebbing, pool around objects,
made distinct by their shapely divisions of light—

Merlot dark in jelly jars.
A fern on the beer fridge peppered with dust.

The screen door swinging open
with the randomness of memory. We could be

anywhere—Malága or Mobile—we could open the door
to sand between toes, sea smells like semen,

your neck after sleep; this lit candle liquid in glass
could be the moon, this music your hum

as you measure water for coffee
in your kitchen, with me in your room, in a dream

of this café, where we sit across from one another,
poles of a space in which the details gather weight.


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