You’re kicking yourself until
I begin to give you
her skin—moist with sweat from
this seventy-degree night.

Her dark nipples. The
soft fullness of each breast
lolling magnificently back against
her torso as she sits in the apartment
below, window open, talking
on the phone.
You listen, shift your weight in the dark,
smoke.
When she rises I tell you
the story of her belly: how eager
firmness is under tender
fleshfolds. From here,
I can see the Milford M, the
beacon neon of porn
palaces and Korean delis. I breathe
in thick summer, faraway souvlaki,
your smoke.

When we finally go back down
to your room we don’t even kiss—
not until I’m on the street
and have already hailed my
homeward cab and I am standing on
8th Avenue asphalt holding the impatient
yellow door open with one hand,
the other on the back
of your neck our mouths
moving hard together.

Even so, I’m telling you,
the treasure is inside.

.

Relephant read:

1974. {Poem}

.

Author: Rachel Astarte

Editor: Yoli Ramazzina

Photo: Flickr/Bert Boerma