Let me not to the mirage of dust admit sediment. Lust
is not lust which falters when it finds falsies, or
grinds with the unbuff to rebuff. Oh, yes! It is an
elevator dark, that looks on Bentleys and is never taken
for a ride. It is the swan to every slandering remark, whose
bird's renown, although his wing is clipped. Lust's not
Rhyme's tool, though lazy knockers and thighs within his
rending cycle's compact come. Lust falters not with his breezy
oars and ways, but roars it out even to the heart of blooms. If
this be terror and on me busted, I never wrote this, nor no woman
ever lusted.

This poem first appeared in the Summer 2004 issue of Barrow Street

The Dictionary Never Tans

afferent   an adj.
carrying inward to a central organ
as nerves conduct
impulses from the periphery
       if furry puff
of the body
to the brain

similar to centripetal
petal of a word
fetal central trying
me
       holed up on a killer May day
all nerves notes impulses
to grasp

the example
a sunflower’s face of flowers
in which the oldest
fringe the periphery
       while the youngest
seize the center
soft-pedaling it

The Dictionary Never Tans first appeared in the Winter 2006 issue of Barrow Street

The Segregation of the Senses

Like 100 people finding shapes in clouds.
"The brain is a sex organ"
says Sandra Witelson,
neuroscientist
and she should know.

Women see colors and textures men cannot see
hear things men cannot hear
smell things men cannot smell.
"That smells fishy," the wife replies
and she should know.

Indeed, men and women seem to handle emotions
quite differently. Our eyes, nose
and ears are portals to the brain.
There is no movie theater.
She informs him he is covered in orange angora.

When they stopped juggling
the new gray matter vanished.
They looked for it everywhere.
The most surprising differences.
She hears him close his mind.

The Segregation of the Senses first appeared in the Winter 2005 issue of Barrow Street and in the April 20, 2006 edition of Verse Daily

W. R. Weinstein's poems have appeared in Barrow Street and on Verse Daily. She is a film critic for Film Journal International, and a longtime lover of New York City, where she lives with her husband and two children.