A poem by Frances Klein

Slake

I’ve never seen sex walk like that.
All duality, denim and dark curls-

pheromones oozing out to permeate

the air like maybe they came packaged special-

and suddenly my skin is opening its pores,

parched earth for the slake of rain,

taking in all that sex before I even know I want it.

I want it.

It’s not for a few days that I realize there is a man
wrapped in all that sex; behind the wheel

and under it, beneath the cedars,
in the ocean, in the front seat and the back

alley, one foot in a tide pool,
one hand in my hair, eyes closed. Eyes closed.

He’s still there when I open them,
tentative and temporary, self-effacing

and self-occupied and strongly self
in ways both sub and super human.

The residue he leaves behind is tenuous,
filming every scientific name

of every native plant, every thrift-store record,

every drop of light that falls through the redwoods

to surround me like a rainstorm,
like a rainstorm, like a storm.

Frances Klein is a high school English teacher. She was born and raised in Southeast Alaska, and taught in Bolivia and California before settling in Indianapolis with her husband Kris. She has been published in GFT Press, Molotov Cocktail, and the Tipton Poetry Journal among others.