"Slip" by Linda Gregerson

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend March 12, 2019   Slip   Linda Gregerson

Liquid alignment of fabric and outer                                       thigh. Slip. Which mimics the thing it's meant to allow.                                       Passage   of air on either side of the tongue whose meat                                       as if to thicken the likeness of substance and sound                                       meets just   that plot of upper palate behind the teeth.                                       And yet   at normal speed the very aptness loses its full                                       bouquet.   "Salomé was wearing red pumps and the palest of                                       pale blue satin slips." I would in my predictable girlhood                                       have much   preferred a word I took to be scented like Giverny:                                       "Salomé was wearing red pumps and a pale blue satin                                       chemise."   It's taken me all this time to hear the truer                                       difference—slip— which only wants a little lingering in the mouth                                       to summon how it   thinks about the contours of the body. So the                                       speed of it— slip—and the lingering can resume their proper tug-                                       of-war. The boy   they'd had the wit to cast as Salomé, both nude                                       and may-as-well-be- nude, was every inch presentable, flawless, as                                       though one   might live in the body and feel no shame. No                                       wonder, forced to endure as they did the reek of the tidal                                       Thames, our   predecessors took this for the universal object of                                       desire.  The history of the English stage right there in the                                       slippage between not-     quite and already over and gone. And yes I                                       get the part about predation the grooming in all of its                                       sordid detail,   I was never half so fair as this but fair enough                                       to have been fair game. In a town with limited options.                                       I've spent   more than half my life trying to rid myself                                       of aftermath so let me be enchanted now. Youth at a safe                                       remove.            Copyright © 2019 Linda Gregerson. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "Two summers ago, I saw Matthew Tennyson play the title role in Oscar Wilde's Salomé. The production was a revelation. And yes, that's Tennyson as in the poet. The actor is his great-great-great-grandson." —Linda Gregerson   Linda Gregerson's most recent book is Prodigal: New and Selected Poems, 1976-2014 (Mariner Books, 2015). She teaches at the University of Michigan and lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Poetry by Gregerson   Prodigal: New and Selected Poems, 1976-2014 (Mariner Books, 2015) "A Boy Can Wear a Dress" by John Bosworth "Bear Witness" by Tiana Clark "Costumes Exchanging Glances" by Mary Jo Bang March Guest Editor: Maggie Smith   Thanks to Maggie Smith, author of Good Bones (Tupelo Press, 2017), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month's weekdays. Read a Q&A with Smith about her curatorial approach this month and find out more about our guest editors for the year. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038

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