Morning comes with the thrum of the sea. You shiver at the remembering, the eddying. Your ordinary body moves, makes coffee. Catkins cluster in tall trees that telescope to the watery blue of the sky. You sit in a camp chair and let the slow minutes fall like soothed pebbles. His ordinary body shifts next to you. A languid breeze drifts over you. Your skin is aware of sweetness, rumor of breath. Your eyes connect watching a dark-haired couple enter the shower house together. They're in sweatpants, holding the handles of plastic caddies. You read three pages. Four. The shower house door opens with an echo that carries, fan rumbling like a thunderstorm across the scrub. The man emerges, rugged in boots and chinos. The woman's hand lingers on the doorknob. She wears a sweater, seashell pink, tight jeans. She stands eternally in front of a mirror, combing her shoulder-length hair. He watches. You can only imagine their knowing reflections in the mirror, the aftermath of intimacy like a hangover—nebulous, blurry, rife with unaccountable ache.
Tori Grant Welhouse is a Wisconsin poet and writer. Her newest poetry chapbook is Padding Loamy on a Brew of Earth (Bottlecap Press). She has been most recently published in Arlington Literary Journal and Passionfruit Review and nominated for Best of the Net and a Pushcart Prize. More at http://www.torigrantwelhouse.com.
Photo © Victoria Manzoli. All rights reserved. 
