Your stuff, Alice, is always such a mixture of the erotic and violent. Such an extreme ambiguity. And yet it's me that gets told that my writing is extreme.

I like this piece. Maybe because of the extremeness of it, or what I perceive as the extremeness in it. You always capture, for me, the tension, sensitivity and insecurity of, dare I say it, the female voice. Male, martial imagery ("a mine is buried") contrasted with the much more feminine "skin" and "fine hairs". It's not so much about "the female" as gender relations.

Anyway, I could be way off. I'm no good with poetry.

And welcome to the site!!!

This paints a picture in my mind, and the picture is actually a scene from a play one of my student's recently wrote and produced called "Baggage".

How amazing it is to chance upon the same scene in different genres

Replying to Hogan:
No good with poetry. Psshaw (or some variation of scornful, yet jovial sentiment). I always get a bit taken aback when I actually get real feedback regarding my poems. You're right Matt, erotic and violent has been a standing theme in the last year of whatever I've written, so I'm excited that it comes across even in this one, which I think is one of my more tame pieces encompassing that theme. You're pretty much on the money with your insights. I've played around with this piece a fair amount since I first posted it on my blog. But I'm still a bit unsure about my ending. I keep thinking about Jeff and feel the urge to stray from such an obvious conclusion.

Thanks again for telling me about this site. I'm pretty damn excited about it!

Replying to Jackson:
Haha. Baggage. So appropriate. I'd love to see the scene you're speaking of.

It is playing in North Vancouver, B.C. on the 22nd and 27th. I could tape it ;)