The eightball barrels towards the corner pocket,
and the colorful satellites in its wake ricochet around the table.
The game is over before it begins.
We sit on the bench along the wall of the bar
with blue chalk powdered fingertips and condensation on our glasses,
your velvet lips pressed together like dimpled thighs.
You lean over close to my ear,
and tell me in hushed tones to scoot over.
I walk you to your car under a starless sky,
and your eyes a couple of dials I might turn up, or down
like the heat in the cramped space of your midsize sedan.
When you say goodnight, I go to return
to the mannequin with the bright feather boa
that watches over the dancefloor like a chaperone.
Then you say, “I really wasn’t done talking to you,”
while you white knuckle your steering wheel.
You add nothing more, and it’s everything I need to hear.
I say goodnight, and when I entangle myself in you,
your scent stings my nose, and my eyes are rings
around distant moons finally come to ground.
When I close the passenger door and turn my back,
the longing drops away like a lead ball
into puddles made in deep ruts in Earth.
I step over them, moving back towards the kickdrums.
R.M. Davenport graduated from the University of Maine at Machias with a background in creative writing. She lives openly as a queer woman who is focused on tackling difficult conversations around trauma, poverty and mental illness through the arts. She has recently had work featured in issues of the San Antonio Review, Feels Blind Literary, and the Rockvale Review.