From poety collection "now you tell me" (c) 1997
First appeared in Issue #34 of Perceptions: The Journal of Imaginative Sensuality - Summer Solstice 1996

Gracie C. McKeever © 5/14/96

you lay beside her, a wrist
thrown over your forehead as if
you've suddenly caught a case of
the vapors

and you moan

you close your eyes against
erotic memories but the images
pound your eyelids, relentless
insistent aphrodisiac, reminding
you of short-lived delight

and you sigh

thoughts of the other, your
vagina dentata, who wears your
band's sister, home in and you
question, "What have I done?"

then you turn your body to the
softness and warmth, curl into
it, weave your arms through hers
and caress full tender breasts

and you groan

you hold onto this one who has
insinuated her ways and means
into the fabric of your life
with the tenacity of a bandit-
eyed racoon jimmying open a
garbage can, rummaging through
the trash for sustenance and
treasure

and you do not regret