Home
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).

Evelyn Wexler
The Geisha House
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.
Look for similar books by subject:
Other work by Evelyn Wexler: