After we’ve been to bed together for the first time,
you step out from the shower, face glowing and hair
glistening, water droplets rolling down your shoulders,
a small towel barely sufficient to cover your modesty
though nothing I’ve never seen before. I invite you
to rejoin me in bed, passing you a beer, icy cold
from the fridge. We sit together, against fluffy pillows,
like a couple, taking a sip, allowing the coldness flow
down our throats to make up for the warm substance
we’ve just lost. I ask you what you usually do
in the evenings, attempting to catch a glimpse
into your life, assessing your potential to be a boyfriend.
But you avoid my eye contact, tongue tied, hands
twitching, gentle waves rippling in the beer bottle, which
makes me suspect you’ve already got a boyfriend, a husband,
or perhaps even a girlfriend, a wife. Now I wonder
how you’ll explain your absence tonight to them. So
the two of us sit in silence, gazing at the telly, trying
to figure out who will say what next, competing
for who will finish the beer first, faces lit
in the orange glow of the lamp, against the dark
blue sky outside the window. Not a star can be seen.
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