Heroines

Because of the sea

(and because

she had another lover boy whom she could miss)

it was easy for Our Tommy to roll himself under her.

He notices all he has to do here is

blow spit bubbles (over the seashell part

of her ear) and massage his own lymph nodes and

say,

out loud and clear,

"It must be the quitting smoking."

The way he was thinking about it was:

well,

her body does not know anything,

and my body will do what it wants and,

running, it ran,

so how easy was it

he was thinking,

if i wanted to add distance, say,

and an absence of one?

When Our Tommy slid his sticking fingers

past that little scoop-ledge of her collarbone,

when she became the softest at his touch,

and bubbling,

he was already traveling east.

She was Ours, too, except maybe not as loved.