ROBERT THOMAS
Sonnet with Emergency Room and Skillet The three of us got back from the ER and popped corn. Your roommate had cut the bulb of her thumb, that most and least erotic zone. She was afraid that later that night you and I might fuck unless she went us one better, and it worked, and we cooked it in a cast-iron skillet—lots of butter. She’d used a fancy pair of poultry shears and flirted with the doc. What did she think we’d do behind the chipped paint of your door, witnessed only by your mute blue blanket? She didn’t want me, or you, but a third thing we didn’t have, though we smacked of it. No one is ever loved as they deserve.
POETRY | 99