by Susana H. Case
Soaking in our Jacuzzi in Lucca,
you soap my foot
with a buttermilk disk.
A psychic float
away from earth
that dissipates as I suddenly think
of Newt Gingrich
snarling at the House Energy and Commerce
Committee Hearings.
Democrats, he said,
want to regulate even Jacuzzis.
When the mantra hum of sensual resolve
kicks in, I give thanks
to the immigrant family from Friuli
whose name is on the agricultural pump
that was the basis for this tub.
Simple control of air and water
like breath.
Last night’s unrest. The promise
of cloud to cloud lightning.
Your heat lightning,
sheet lightning,
electric high in the cumulonimbus.
Five thousand meters up.
Susana H. Case, professor at the New York Institute of Technology, has recent work in many journals, including Hawai’i Pacific Review, Portland Review and Potomac Review. She is the author of the chapbooks The Scottish Café (Slapering Hol Press), Anthropologist In Ohio (Main Street Rag Publishing Company), The Cost Of Heat (Pecan Grove Press), and Manual of Practical Sexual Advice (Kattywompus Press). An English-Polish reprint of The Scottish Café, Kawiarnia Szkocka, was published by Opole University Press in Poland. Her book, Salem In Séance (WordTech Editions) will be released in 2013.
_____________________________________________________
