By Anne Hasenstab
Hawthorne Fellow 2012
Anne Hasenstab’s poetry has recently appeared in a handful of literary magazines including Sou’wester, The Naugatuck River Review, The Avatar Review and Cavalier Literary Couture. Anne earned an MFA from Fairfield University, is the Founding Editor of The Honey Land Review and is currently working on her first full-length poetry manuscript, Flock.
___________________________________________________________
Yevtushenko is a ladies’ man,
the revelation came
as I begged an autograph
post-reading of The Kissing Inn,
which made me buckle,
forty years his junior and
suddenly poet’s prey.
Seduction is buffoonery at best,
a funhouse mirror distorting sight,
that tickle of joy exposed in the
bend and break of the norm.
It is a man draped in Swazi mud cloth,
newsboy tipped cunningly to the ear,
a holy rumpus of flesh and poetry
beating from a boney frame.
It is the unexpected deliciousness
of “hot champagne” and the promise
that deep within the subway dank
there lies the perfect place to kiss.
It is the thaw upon thaw of Siberian nights
and my own melting as he pulled me near,
planted a kiss and penned:
To Anne:
My admiration since a first look.