StarCat/CatStar

Two Poems
By Jeff Nazzaro
Author bio: Jeff Nazzaro teaches creative writing and ESL at Loyola
Marymount University in Los Angeles. His work has recently appeared in
Flash: The International Short-short Story Magazine, Bareback, Every Day
Fiction, and Rind
Laughter Impossible to Refute
With a gravity that made her
laughter impossible to refute
he said Give me what I need
and I will give you
everything you ever wanted.
She lay back on the bed, and,
raising a foot as if from bubbly bath,
said, Remove this shoe
and then we shall make love.
Not dangling, a slipper,
like a ballerina might wear,
or a princess, unadorned,
as small as rain,
as bare as her other foot.
Kneeling, he removed the shoe,
though beneath it lurked another,
and another:
penny loafer, stiletto pump, Annie Lo Nurse Mate,
ice hockey skate with black Tuuk blade, galosh.
Bright yellow rubber boots
grip the last step of the escalator,
last not first, endlessly cycling,
just the last, looming gone.
The escalator rises, straight up,
not around in endless ellipse,
the little girl in the gold boots
clings, does not leap
to make the train.