Lillian Susan Thomas Poems

Hard shelled,
Smoothed by many currents, many tides,
Buffing it with all that sand
As waves cycle through,
...

I am building a skeleton within,
My first accomplishment of adulthood.
All other projects and five-year plans have failed.
And seeing others soaring on careers
...

Just before the dark moon,
A slender sliver of light -
Like a piece of onion skin -
Rises into the sky near sunrise.
...

I had never had a breath stir the hair along the nape of my neck until a man called the woman out of me, knowing I was untouched, untried, but yearning to feel one breathless moment in someone's arms. I did not know the lips of a man much less the thighs,
when I was first asked to bed.

And after a day's and night's deliberation, accepted. That was me: nothing on a whim back then. Everything thought through. I had for months been resorting morals to clear the way for love's approach. But no one came. All my college friends saw me as I saw myself: completely unbeautiful, completely lost in logic's cold embrace.
...

Last summer I had opened the windows over the bed
To let in the night's breeze;
But air too still drugged me to deep sleep,
Smothering me under its dead-weight heat.
...

Fall
leaves fly
past
the bus
...

On a long day of lovemaking,
You fed me orange sections
In a morning break.
They were commas between
...

We are the lithograph of God's Image -
Each a numbered edition
From the stone cut.
Some copies turn out faint,
...

From the very first time
We wrapped ourselves
In a chrysalis
Of love and silk sheets,
...

I am hunting my wayward heart.
I can feel that steady drum beat,
Following the ruby river
With fingertips like bloodhounds,
...