Thin Walls (Love Poem) Poem by Doren Robbins

It was ninety degrees.
On and off someone coughed miserably in the next apartment.
We went through the whole bottle of wine, we were fed up
with our jobs and the summer. You pulled my hand
between your thighs, I lifted back the sheer cotton skirt-fringe
damp with sweat. Short, hard footsteps thumped from room to room.
Coughing like that had blood in it. The jasmine was heavy
in the hot September night. You reached up to my shoulders,
and your legs came apart so easily, your legs
held my thighs in the wet mirror of your white skin.
In the morning, half awake I lay there
on the sheet still wet from our bodies,
the sunlight sharpened through the empty wine glass,
the neighbor's cat scratched next door like it always did
to be let out.