ISSUE: Fall 2012
I’m telling you, was always like this: her fingers
around a cold glass, asking me if I really thought her lovely.
In a musky corner booth, thinking only of ourselves. We let one another be
selfish, outrageous in our complaining. She smoked
her eyelids with shadow, asked me if it made her look any younger.
I couldn’t lie, it didn’t. I rubbed up her thigh
under the table and touched her like a woman knows to do—
only small circles get you anywhere. Yes, she huffed into my ear,
yes, there. She laughed at her own dramatic whisper. We sank into the leather
and let our heads knock softly together. Her face and mine,
close to rotting. Under the table she touched me too, held my brittle hands.
Told me she hated all of her photos, especially her jagged teeth,
that she couldn’t even look at her own mouth. Those nights
I danced her into the street because I could, because a woman like her
moves and moves
without any leading. She would extend her hand to me,
but not to me. Her pale wrist,
her long palm, reaching.
Stretching across traffic.
