Pith & Vinegar: "Truce"

Here is another Pith & Vinegar poem that never appeared in any chapbooks. It was originally published in The Cathartic in 1986.

Truce

We made love in the summer
on the bed that groaned with us

orchestration
windows wide open
flies landing on our skin
no sense at all of time

even as it passed us by
raking its fingernails
across our sweaty backs

◊ ◊ ◊

The sun made a blanket
on which we slept

sheets tore loose
from where they'd been tucked
and tangled around our legs
like ivy, poison ivy

as we sleepily listened
for the discourse of birds
watching from the sill
wondering what we were