It rains down. Love, I will not marry you.
I haven’t been asked to though my answer
spins so, as the girl in sneaker-skates twirls
through the restaurant, that I wonder if wooed
would I say otherwise? Dancing, you took
me once very close. Chain churrasco
offers one lonely fish and fiasco
for our good-bye: no privacy, plastic
plants. It rains still. Love, if there aren’t lyrics
for our ease, riches, imagined kisses,
we will compose with distance, steak on sticks,
words not said, your hotel sheets whose creases
rest undisturbed. I want no more of you
than what a few chords, a slow turn can do.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 25, Issue 5.
Susan Goslee’s poems have appeared in Volt, Crab Creek Review, The Southampton Review, West Branch, Permafrost: Online, Juked: Online, and other journals. She teaches at Idaho State University and is poetry editor at Prompt Press.
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