Jeff Schiff

TMI, Perhaps

I need a music as fickle & spunky as love
            I need a dirge turned ditty turned anthem
                        I need to hum

through the kazoo of my lover's teeth
            where rasp gives way to melody
                        and tongues morph into sweet melon

I need to fill my fractured bucket
            because full’s my only number
                        so I gulp compulsion

by the gulletful
            hoping stanch will RSVP
                        in a hurry

I need a dandle
            I need a plush push & pull holiday
                        an adoration romp

three days at the cottage
            treading water
                        in our single bed

I need an I me mine picnic
            where you is me
                        well past dusk

I need to confront my binaries
            so I pluck gnarly this
                        & that from our beach

stoop and spasm
            hoping liniment
                        and wifely succor will follow

Jeff Schiff is the author of That hum to go by, Mixed Diction, Burro Heart, The Rats of Patzcuaro, The Homily of Infinitude, and Anywhere in this Country. Hundreds of his pieces have appeared in more than 130 publications worldwide including The Alembic, Bellingham Review, Cincinnati Review, Grand Street, Ohio Review, Poet & Critic, Tulane Review, Tampa Review, Louisville Review, Tendril, Pembroke Magazine, Carolina Review, Chicago Review, Hawaii Review, Southern Humanities Review, River City, Indiana Review, Willow Springs, and Southwest Review. He has been a member of the faculty at Columbia College, Chicago since 1987.