Featured Writer: Alan King Day 2

3 a.m.

An hour before, we were laying
in your bed -- your fingers trailing
my spine, finding the pool

at the small of my back. I laughed
when you said we'd be a married
couple holding each other

on a night like this -- rain drumming
your windows, the flash of thunder
shining our slippery bodies;

my calf sore from a charley horse
pulled when we wrestled earlier.
The night breeze cooling

our bodies. Will it always be
like this? you wondered, as if
this is all it takes to keep you

here before you lose interest
and move on. All I have is how
we indulged in one appetite

after another -- the first a craving
between bodies, then the other
that's brought us to a near empty diner.

Your smile, as I call this
a "late night caper," the only
lit spot on a darkened road.

________________________________________

Cosmic Girl

even now, knowing
what you know,
you still can't shake her
from your head

almost six years since
you've seen her curvy
imprint under a sundress

when the breeze was a friend
lifting her hem and showing her
flexed calves ablaze in sunlight

you ignored your friends'
warnings, even after the third
time she'd introduced herself
by another name

now, she was Aurora Borealis –
a band of renegade stars
streaking the dark sky

and what a way to sum up
this woman of light with fiery hair
and a glass-blown body

a woman who, despite your
pleading, quit you cold turkey
and left you whimpering
in the arms of friends,

recalling the obvious signs
of trouble, like her pointing
heavenward when asked
about her hometown

and the fact her previous name
was a number reserved for God


3 a.m. and Cosmic Girl will be published in the inaugural issue of the San Pedro Poetry Review.