Two Poems

Sally Molini

Wedding Arcade

What the difference is between a good round of ring toss
and this long aisle

I don't know. The chapel is full of hidden objects—
pew hinge, organ glue, censer ash.
He doesn't look at me.

The woods outside have that used-up smell
as if dust were rotting.
She's an old peg poured into premature notions,

bouquet, hat, echo

of a dog's bark. Knowing becomes camouflage—
even my RV cousin gets tired of the road.

At the reception, a child flings punch
on satin shoes. Let green

be the color of love, root of the air,
arborescent, full of chimes. Too much champagne,

heightened shaking
of hands, thoughts like moving targets

taxi home, tunnel-vision into sleep, memories
eventually sliding off their base to nowhere.

***

Coney Island Nudes

Lee shows me her house, the back
narrow bedroom a kind of shrine—
where else could I keep them? she asks
and points out the few who have sex
organs, lifting up a tiny Scotsman's
kilt as proof. The rest are the usual
half-pixie, half-pudge blush-bellied
dolls created by Rosie O'Neill,
smiling vinyl-eyed descendants
of Eros. Blame the 1909 Ladies
Home Journal for the kitsch-ditzy
evolution of something once Greek
then Roman, undiapered legion
on walls and tables, carnival
babies three feet tall to mini—
another chink of civiliation
living as cartoon. My new friend
takes a tiny duster from a shelf,
moves about her Tunnel of Kewpie,
little pseudo-eunuchs of love,
empty-handed Cupids
in on some synchronized delight,
hundreds of eyes askance.

Sally Molini's work has appeared or is forthcoming in Beloit Poetry Journal, Diagram, Rattle, New York Quarterly, Hanging Loose, elimae, and and elsewhere, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She is an editor for Cerise Press, an online international journal (www.cerisepress.com) based in the US and France.

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