Paper, saddlestitched, 24 pp
$5.50 plus s&h
1992, ISBN 0-932412-05-X

These visionary erotic poems imagine the world of the geisha house with a female client and both male and female geishas.

Home
by Evelyn Wexler

I have been lost too much in temporary
places: hotels, weather, children, time.

Geisha house, long unvisited, waits.
The laughter of distant women,
closer now the murmur of men,
lcimonos of every color open and ready.

See light slash the night
between shunted walls.
Stones in the pool glitter.
Torches stay lit forever.

Inside me a palace.
A lamp streams from a casement.
Stars are painted on the skylight
but the moon is real. Tables
are spread for my homecoming.

Geisha opens the door.
His tongue caresses to the sound of a samisen,
another serves me honey.
Too much time lost to mourn,
we revel and glisten in the festival.

So many rooms.
Each with its own lumination and lover:
lanterns, lightning, spangles, glow worms, embers.
Led to my chamber, I find my own
shining damask kimono.
I will spend my last days gliding
from room to room.

Evelyn Wexler is a former English teacher and guidance counselor. The Geisha House was her first book; she is also the author of Occupied Territory (Mayapple Press, 1994).