In the darkness,
Under stars I’d never seen in city life,
We kissed.
The ocean was swells of black ink,
The air a cool, damp rag.
I traced his face like I was blind,
Remembering with fingertips
The shape of his sun-burnt nose.
We rolled around on bumpy ground,
And he said, I like you so much.
I suppose I’d known how the night would end,
My shoes were full of sand.
I tipped and poured like an hourglass.
Too fast, I whispered
to his wandering hands.
He said he would wait ’til I was ready,
And I believed him then.
But the next day he went back to school,
And I never saw him again.
Later we stood, disheveled,
And he unsatisfied.
Our eyes had adjusted to the starlight,
And we saw all along we’d been lying
on a pile of abandoned toys.
Burlesque Press 