explaining displacement

[Todd]

Hi Amanda,

I've wanted to get back to this to critique. I haven't read any of the other critiques so forgive me if there's any repetition. 

Let's start with the title, I'm thinking it means psychological displacement. So when I read it I'm looking for the speaker to shift emotions from an object or person that they should be directed to, to someone less threatening. This may not be correct, but it's what I bring to the poem.

Your handling of the topic, and your word choice so reminds me of Sharon Old's collection Satan Says. If there were an anthology your poem could fit in with some of Olds's work in that book. I don't know if she's an influence but I like similar things in your work that I like in yours. 

To the lines:

I came without you last night;
two fingers curled like parentheses between my thighs where I left you. --You don't skimp on your openings. These first two lines while sensual also provide some distance which works with your title. The first line does this with its double meaning and directly with its content. The second line (which is maybe the best in the poem) uses parentheses as a shape and an image, but it also does the dual duty of reminding to deemphasize what the speaker is relating much like in grammar (___). So again, intimate closeness juxtaposed with distance.
& autumn became just as fleeting. I--I like the deliberate choice of the ampersand here (I know because you use and later that it is not just a style affectation. Again, the speaker immediately takes what should be an intimate image at the end of line two and moves from word to symbol. There are no words. Autumn to me here makes me think the relationship has hit its peak and is sliding toward its end (winter). It is the realization that as the line says the time together is "just as fleeting." The break on I emphasizes to me that they are not to be thought of as a we.
remember red as if it were currency;--Even without the next line I would have associated this with the womanhood below.
borrowed from womanhood and the kiss that claimed us one.--This feels like it needs an "as" before one. Slightly awkward phrasing. I think I get there but it is a bump in my reading.

I remember how you fed me oranges--The ampersand below is provide that same distance after the memory--at least that's how I take it. It's a coping mechanism.
& I tongued the seeds while my fingers played in your hair. I--again love the sensual image, and again the break on the I
crawled inside your analogy and made love to you as if I were an eggshell;--Language as a displacement tool (the parentheses, ampersands, now the analogy) the speaker is relating to metaphor one step removed from what is. Very nice. The eggshell image set against the concrete line below really work well together.
small and brittle, unable to stand the concrete weight of your hands.--Normally, I would see two modifiers like small and brittle and think can we combine these, but a poem is more than its parts. They work for me here though because they build on one another, add tension, and give a sense as to figuratively why they aren't together. One might break, and the other is almost unable to break what he touches.

I raise the hem of my skirt;
my womb has gone back to war beneath ripe cotton. I--Now we introduce the possibility of children.
try to draw a line between us--and is that the line also between them not just a hem line.
& peel back the blisters of what you left inside of me;--blisters makes me think of herpes in this context
the color of a thousand tight throated blossoms when it bleeds.--tight throated blossoms is wonderful here

I bought oranges today
& picked dandelions to place on my breasts where your skin still covers me. I
smell of sandalwood and citrus-
I snuff out my cigarette in the fruits flesh and gnaw on the rind.--The oranges add a symmetry to the close. This is a well put together piece. I don't have a lot of criticism for you. Perhaps my walk through the language can let you know where you hit or missed your intention--at least with this reader.

Enjoyed the poem a great deal. I hope some of this will be helpful to you.

Best,

Todd