Dinner Piece
    Andrena Zawinski
I'd like to take you
out to dinner. We can go
to Cafe Mallorca, have paella
served in cruise ship proportions,
flan laced with Portuguese liqueur
you can't buy locally. I'll have
them part the quiet with
a contrapunte. "Canta canta
companero." I'll hold hands
above my head, click my fingers
for good service.

I'd like to have
dinner with you. I can cook
a cajun broil, spiced in remoulade,
some peaches and brandied cream
on the side. You can tell me how
I look like someone you once loved
or wished to love, and I will serenade
you with a bit of Beausoleil: "C'est toi
que j'aime, bebe. Regardez moi."

I'd like to make you
dinner, dish up a little
artichoke pesto, drink Chianti right
from the flask. You can make
the small talk about Italian weddings
where you moved in on some
young crush with Mediterranean
eyes, Maria Callas crooning
"un bel di, vedremo."

I'd like to have you
in for dinner, eat raw
oysters and clam soup in bread bowls,
papaya with champagne to clear
our tongues at the end. We'll burn
candles for a sultry light and press
into the sheets cheek, hip, thigh, lips.
As if upon a natural course, we will run
like whispered syllables of rivers do, lining
natural boundaries between countries--
where ahead uncharted distances lie
tough and juicy as pomegranate.



Andrena Zawinski, born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA, now lives and writes from the San Francisco Bay Area. Her poems have appeared online at Adirondak Review, For Poetry, Disquieting Muses, Zuzus Petals, and other sites. Works in print have been published by Quarterly West, Santa Clara Review, Paterson Literary Review, Callaloo, Gulf Coast, and elsewhere. She is Features Editor for PoetryMagazine.com
 
 
 
 

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