volume 14 number 2
by Charles Wuest
The expensive perfume works reliably where she thinly sprays it. He wipes his feet beside the broom
which seems to resist its filth at night. She loves past seeing this younger skin she’s missed.
The blood inside his knees as they undress knocks like the drapes on the breeze she left untied
and wine and music scatter some leaves in strokes confused when fingers lock and tongues lick
away at abandonment to come and he feels his girlish reluctance dissipate unmeant
from his skin like water, a roll of papers left out at night, hair twisted around a finger
like prayer beads. That story anyway couldn’t last either. The streets got older. The cars were ordinary.