His Two Arms

dangle,
one on each side of his body
as he stands before the refrigerator,
leans in, and pillages for food—
purple grapes, a hunk
of Swiss, Kalamata olives—
his forearms covered
with a modicum of hair,
not ape-like but manly,
each of his arms
unadorned and no-nonsense,
muscled at the biceps,
not bulging and rippling and knotted
with blue veins
like on guys who pump iron
and wear tank shirts from Gold’s Gym,
but curving and rising
like two hills bordering the campsite
where before you a feast is laid.

Diane Lockward is the author of three poetry books, What Feeds Us, which received the 2006 Quentin R. Howard Poetry Prize, Eve’s Red Dress, and, most recently, Temptation by Water. Her poems have been included in such anthologies as Poetry Daily: 360 Poems from the World’s Most Popular Poetry Website and Garrison Keillor’s Good Poems for Hard Times and in such journals as Harvard Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, and Prairie Schooner. Her work has also been featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, and The Writer’s Almanac.
*Photo courtesy of Coty Lynn.
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