I
It takes three tequila
shots to completely
fuck me up, and Jane is still eyeing
her empty shot glass. Her cheeks
reflect the dim light over the bar, magnify it.
“You a billiards
man?” she says, reeking cactus
and tilting on her stool. She cracks
the first set, sends three solids into three pockets.
One sharp jerk as
the music shifts
and two more balls rattle down their shoots.
Jane slides in and out of the beat, hips revolving
to shoulders to fingers straight on the cue.
When it’s my
turn, she leans
against the wall, a cigarette
between her lips and I
can’t see the
table. I miss.
White spin rebounds
off the far wall into a side pocket.
Jane bends and comes
up rolling it
in her palm. Her lips brush my ear.
“ Take me home and fuck me.”
At her throat, a tiny
moonstone
glints, blood prick trapped inside
like an unbeating heart.
II
I wake alone in her
bed. Jane parts
the curtains. Like a million million stars
on her skin, water sparkles
in the predawn light. I’d swear
it’s she and not the sun
that blinds me.
III
Down at the corner
café, Jane pushes potatoes
around her plate, piling them up as if
to resurrect the wall between us.
She’s lovely
as ever, buttons straining
across her chest, her voice scarred with cigarettes.
So easy, to imagine sex is the answer.
So hard, to know the question.
