Ten of Two

Stretch your hand against the sky:
No puedo cubrir el cielo,* you sigh
and turn to me, your juice-stained lips
as tempting as any ripened fruit
a poet has ever used in metaphor.

And as you count your fingers, always
coming up with twenty, I steal a kiss;
your soul is rubber and your will is iron
but my soul is glass and my will your soul,
and I cannot resist the taste of grapes on your mouth.

You smile and divide ten by two
to press your lips against my palm;
strange, you never liked it when
I recited Romeo and Juliet to you.
No puedes cubrir el cielo, you smile.


- - - - -

*No puedo cubrir el cielo--Sp. "I cannot cover the sky." Comes from an old Puerto Rican saying, No puedes cubrir el cielo con la mano, or, "You cannot cover the sky with your hand." Also, in line 3.5, it's adjusted to more closely match the saying; whereas in line 1.2 she says "I cannot cover the sky," in like 3.5 she says, "You cannot cover the sky." Just thought I'd clue the non-Spanish speakers in.

Stretch your hand against the sky:
No puedo cubrir el cielo,* you sigh
and turn to me, your juice-stained lips
as tempting as any ripened fruit
a poet has ever used in metaphor.

This is by far my favorite stanza. It's great to have a strong opening stanza, however it sets the bar high for the following stanzas which are drastically different in my opinion. "sky" and "sigh" rhyme here in the first two lines and leads the reader to believe right off the bat that this poem will rhyme, so when the rest of the lines don't it throws off the read and confuses the reader. But other than that here, this is definitely my favorite.

And as you count your fingers, always
coming up with twenty, I steal a kiss;
your soul is rubber, [s]and[/s] your will is iron
but my soul is glass and my will your soul,
[s]and[/s] I cannot resist the taste of grapes on your mouth.

I know it looks like I completely tore this apart, but let me explain. I love the voice in the first stanza, it's very windy and not full of filler words. I even typically hate the use of 'you' as towards the reader but in this instance I like it. But, "always coming up with twenty" has an odd completeness about it and I believe it could be changed to match the first stanza a little better, just play around with different words/word arrangements. I will take out "and" in the third line and replace it with a comma, the and makes it too complete. The "but my" in the forth line is odd I believe, but I don't really know what to do with it. Lastly I'd ditch the "and" in the last line and find someway to drop a few syllables in the line--it just reads way too long for your other lines.

You smile and divide ten by two
to press your lips against my palm;
strange, you never liked it when
I recited Romeo and Juliet to you.
No puedes cubrir el cielo, you smile.

My only complaint here is L3-4. I actually love this, how two and you rhyme and it pretty much makes it perfect, but the L3-4 run smoothly together like a perfect sentence....too perfect, too complete. Although, I have absolutely no suggestions for you on changing it =/

Anyway, hope my crit helped.

Happy Editing and Welcome to the site!
Wm

Thanks, WM! Your comments certainly do help. Wow, this is better feedback than I've gotten on any of the other sites I've tried!

Uhhh.. maybe my eyes get way too distracted, but take away the asterisk, please. Once I hit that asterisk, I get jogged back to reality and... I don't want to.

This poem was very good.

your soul is rubber and your will is iron
but my soul is glass and my will your soul,

This was by far the weakest part. There were so many yours and mys that it got pretty confusing really quickly. By trimming some of the excess words (like write me suggested) it will be better.

Also.. (assuming that the narrator is male and the other is female) he is saying his will is her soul, which means that it's rubber yet... why is the narrator being so forceful with her, kissing her when she only dares to kiss his hand? That part doesn't really make sense to me. O_o

GAH!! I did a detailed crit of this, but my computer had a stroke mid-posting.

-crit ticket-

I'll edit a proper critique here tomorrow.