He leans into his arm, peeks
at her hose crotch bed-height,
her breasts doubling over.
It’s no artist’s pose, feet in a basin,
pin shivers in pointillesque.
Still the hair she holds off her neck
sends heat into him. Otherwise,
color and motion, the day’s
global positioning rachets
into place with a purse click.
Sweet, she says into the near dark.
She could mean the sudden breeze,
but he catches her hand
with his rough cheek.
Terese Svoboda is the author of Great American Desert (Mad Creek Books, 2019), her second story collection, which received starred reviews from Kirkus and Booklist. She has previously published eight books of poetry, five novels, a memoir, a work of translation, and a critical biography, Anything That Burns You: A Portrait of Lola Ridge, Radical Poet. Her fiction has recently appeared in Granta, Guernica, Epiphany, and StoryQuarterly. Her poems have appeared in AGNI, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Atlantic, The American Poetry Review, and elsewhere. Her website is www.teresesvoboda.com. (updated 3/2019)