3 Poems
   by Arlene Ang

Little Bo Peep Deals with Insomnia

Every night
she counts the bronze turns
of the ceiling fan
and mourn her lost flock.

Jupiter always peeks in
through the window to pierce
her eyes with starlight.
She has been heard to curse.

Sometimes she disembowels clocks
to ward off time
only to watch pink sap ooze
across tangerine sky.

The meadows are overrun by cement.
It is particularly hard
to spy sheeptails when everyone
is wearing wool in winter.

_____________________________________________

Breaking the Ice

During winter I wore
goosedown jackets
in bed and shivered
against pillows
that yearned to yield
under pressure of sex.

He complained
he had yet to see me
naked enough for stoking warmth
or even through the steam
of showers, lathering
cream along moist thighs.

I needed assurance
and preferred to talk first
about the dynamics of self-combustion,
whether or not bubbling teapots
can warm stomachs, Icarus' flight
towards sizzling little death.

He insisted
that heat can only be
propagated in two,
rubbed aflame with
different skin types
that frizzle with pheromones.

I refused to believe
until the boiler broke down
due to overheating,
plumbers called sick from work
and emergency hot lines
feigned death for weeks.
_____________________________________________

Just Another Pebble

I do not need a geologist
to confirm that I am
orogenetically handicapped.

I've been rock'n'rolling
for years in this glass bowl
of stage-time continuum,

critically popped in and out
goldfish mouths
whose idea of Stonehenge

is a plastic cave.
I'm just another pebble
whose guitar skills

cannot even strum waves
on a flatbed pond,
or get kicked uphill

by jitterbugging suede shoes.
Still I never hesitate
to shake off every shoulder-moss

of inhibition when I strut
my tongue before relatives
like a real Rolling Stone.

Arlene Ang lives in Venice, Italy where she edits the Italian Niederngasse.  Her poetry has recently appeared in The Pedestal 
Magazine, Literati Review, Tattoo Highway, The Adirondack Review and 2River View. She has received a nomination from VLQ 
for the 2003 Pushcart Prize.