San Gabriel Valley Poetry Quarterly

Thelma T. Reyna

Brown Arms

He doesn't know I watch, or
maybe yes, he does. He carries rocks
in arms burnt browner by the sun, in arms
sinewed and knotted by muscles stretching and
pushing against granite edges of patio
pavers he lays in puzzles beyond my ken.

Sweat veneers his back like varnish freshly
stroked. His knees straddle opened earth, leather hands cupping
moistness as he digs deeper, smoothing loam, opening the
hole, plunging fingers into dirt made soft with rain. Face lowered,
droplets of his labor anoint the bed.

He hardly rests. He sips from plastic cups I bring to
him with eyes averted from the truth. His dark fingers brush
my wrist, a moment pardoned with a flush, and he
turns to toil that defines his being. Hour after
hour, in days long with longing, his brown arms lift
and move and hold and carry and embrace.

What does he think while his muscles groan, sweat
salting his lips and nipples as it trickles to
his pants? I lean against the wall, curtain falling
closed again, my knees useless.