He is reaching around her \u2013 claw foot tub, oceanography. I could say
\nislands, but instead \u2013 weigh stations,
\nalways this or that, always weather.
\nShe is wondering
\nwhat it might be like to take a class at the University, what might have been
\nthe ending to the movie she fell asleep to the night before.
\nHer knee is a mountain where she rests her mouth,
\nher back a climbing rope.
\nHe will cup her breast like
\ncupping a sparrow out of its nest \u2013
\nribs, astronomy. This
\nis a many porcelained sea and that thick arm, those thick fingers \u2013
\nare we beasts? \u00a0Her dress is
\nabandoned on the tile floor, her eyes another body she blinks.
\nShe wonders what it is like when men go on long trips out in the Atlantic \u2013
\ndo their maps show constellations? She imagines
\na line dropping into the sea \u2013
\ncurrents,
\nlocations.
\nThere will come a day when she lays back her whole body submerged and
\nthinks of him with the cool of her spine, the same way
\nshe thinks of taking the car out for a drive \u2013
\nhand over hand, foot
\nin the divot of his chest.
\nShe examines her toes through waters of the Pacific, sees
\nher reflection as a loud, tenuous sail.
\nHis arm is a cloud of anxious birds tying knots behind her,
\nhis wrist a league of switches.
\nShe could stop this \u2013 as if
\na house were made of twig,
\nas if her breasts were the sweet note of the church choir no one is sure they can reach.
\nBut his hand lands on her like mist.
\nHis palm is the warm light from the window.
\nHis fingers are debris.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

He is reaching around her \u2013 claw foot tub, oceanography. I could say islands, but instead \u2013 weigh stations, always this or that, always weather. She is wondering what it might be like to take a class at the University, what might have been the ending to the movie she fell asleep to the night … Continue reading The Cold Miles<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3604,"featured_media":383,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"issue":[6875],"class_list":["post-296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","issue-6875"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/env-greenfieldcc-dev.kinsta.cloud\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/env-greenfieldcc-dev.kinsta.cloud\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/env-greenfieldcc-dev.kinsta.cloud\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/env-greenfieldcc-dev.kinsta.cloud\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3604"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/env-greenfieldcc-dev.kinsta.cloud\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/env-greenfieldcc-dev.kinsta.cloud\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/env-greenfieldcc-dev.kinsta.cloud\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/env-greenfieldcc-dev.kinsta.cloud\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/env-greenfieldcc-dev.kinsta.cloud\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/env-greenfieldcc-dev.kinsta.cloud\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296"},{"taxonomy":"issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/env-greenfieldcc-dev.kinsta.cloud\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue?post=296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}