2 March 2003 | Vol. 3, No. 1

And I Really Don't Care

by ALISON DANIEL

if the lights are on or off, if we're in the kitchen

or the bedroom, half-naked or fully disrobed at six

or seven when we should be thinking about other things

and I really don't care for this position or that particular

slant of events like the time we did it outside and

I really don't care for a hotel bed in another country

where we memorized exotic smells before and after

we'd eaten downstairs and you said you'd like to talk

about the suppleness of scent, how it curves like hips

traced by fingertips before you fall asleep and dreams

curl under your lids the way a woman's lipstick

is another shade when it's two in the morning and

you're drinking from her lips and I really don't care

if it takes fifteen minutes or thirty days, if the sheets

are cotton or silk or semen stained and dripping

wet as long as I see dilated eyes speaking our sex

when you tell me there is nothing left.