Aubade To a Regrettable Dream
by Golda Grais

Runestone, volume 12

The kiss at the beginning was unbelievably sweet, as if
I couldn’t believe it was happening. I haven’t seen this boy
since high school, but the impossible odds didn’t register in fantasy.
Drunk on his tongue, I rode the sweet burn of finally

until it was gone. It didn’t take long. The affair turned callow,
an unfurling scene no horny teen would rewind to. I slowly unraveled
his hair from my mouth. My hand lurched by his belly
from behind somehow. He insisted on wearing dirty red sneakers

on the clean white bed. I begged him to look at me. He smirked down at
his phone. But when I slipped off my jeans he purred “attagirl” into my navel.
He became our old gym teacher, commending my dive into the aqua salt
swimming pool. With dripping temples, I clung to the sex. He swelled up

between my legs. I got an A for the chemistry, a presentation in ninth grade
about exploding ivory soap in the microwave. Searching for solids, I sunk
into his hot, quivering mass. The foam went limp, dissipated. I washed
my hands for eternity in the bathroom sink. The Irish Spring stink of him

wouldn’t come clean. Then, through the logic of dreams, he reappeared,
sitting in the kitchen shaking his head with disbelief. I can sense it
from my waiting place in the sheets. Coffee in hand, two stories below,
he felt sorry for me. I cannot come

to my senses. I feel the sunlight beyond these curtains
of vein sluiced skin. The recollection of him lives only within.
When I open my eyes, this bed will be trashed by my thrashing.
Dirt grits at my legs, cleaving the lingering, the filth he tracked in.