He pulls it out of thin air like a post-sex magician or tugs it out of a sock drawer they shared. His heel worn holes mixed with her beet-colored socks. A letter nestled between them like a baby bird waiting for new cotton for cold feet. She’s on her knees while he reads above her. There’s always been submission in surprise; in not knowing that sex has stopped meaning marriage. He couldn’t look in her eyes and imagine a different woman.
The intimate stitch of their bed’s quilt is a distraction from their end. Pleasure his permission to push their conclusion. She will always claim he came. That sex was a weapon. The letter a hook lost between her thighs. A final chance to convince the man she loves that her body could be a boat. She can hold him gently, heels hooked into the softness of his aging back, hands grabbing like his body’s a loose fish in the bottom of a boat. Did they put their clothes back on before trying to climb two sides of the same shore? Her body bent into an oar, asking his hands to remember how easy it is to hold her.
~~~Olivia Mettler is a writer from Minnesota. She currently works as a teacher in Atlanta and spends her free time complaining about cars and pretending she can talk to birds.
