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      August 18, 2008Maya Jewell ZellerAmber

      Because you tell me
      you want to strip
      at State Line,
      I tell you
      how a woman will always feel
      like a body folded around another body,
      the layered one
      she wants to slough off
      like a heavy shawl, furred skin
      lifted in alien winds,
      skeletal, petal-thin.
      Were you named for their honey,
      Amber, orange and dripping
      from your father’s
      comb? His face black with net,
      hands the hard skin of a man
      who works with diesel day
      after day. The hands spin
      you, your head
      humming, legs long as clover
      stamen spindling from a fastened core.
      Twirl, the pole your wand,
      sky-anchored, your hair a hundred wings,
      dust-rubbed, hot whir of clapping,
      green field, feet sticky,
      eyes the flecked stone bottom
      of creek-bed, a man’s beard
      by your thigh. But you turned
      left when he said
      left. Where are the flowers
      you expected?
      They’ll ask you to sit
      on their laps, Amber,
      lick the rims
      of their beers. Yes, I think—
      yes. I can hear the bees now.
      They want out
      of their striped
      and heavy clothes.

      from 2007 Rattle Poetry Prize Honorable Mention