he knows the way
to back her against the wall,
placing his fingers just roughly against
her neck to appear intimidating
and tender at the same time.

he holds her with simultaneous
force and gentleness, touching a finger
to the bottom of her chin, forcing upward gaze and
eye contact.

he pulls on the loose strands of
her braid and touches her head with his own,
moving her backwards with only his pupils,
reenacting some beastial mating
where no words are spoken,
yet both bodies are left in
frantic gesticulation
in order to understand intention.

and then there's that lip-biting
knee-weakening, tonsil-teasing kiss
where both mouths entwine in some impossible
contortion leaving the illusion that the lovers
are permanently entangled in tongues and saliva.

and it always ends with one
yanking away before
the other believes its finality completed.

and it is in that moment--
if the lovers know their proper timing--
that hell breaks loose of its southern domains
and erupts into a synapses
of flesh on flesh and
clothes strewn at the bed-side,
where one hand covers the mouth of its mate
who bites down ferociously and
screams hail-mary's to an audience
of shadows and bugs on the window-screen.

and after a moment,
the silence subsides and the lovers
sit up and smoke their cigarettes,
cross their legs and regain their composures,
their breaths.

if they're lucky,
they'll also know the intimacy
of that kind of post-coital
love-making--
where the one wraps the other in his arms
and they compare their skin tones
and fall asleep softly.

such communications
need no vocalizations.

07/26/2006

Posted on 07/26/2006
Copyright © 2024 Lauren Singer