San Gabriel Valley Poetry Quarterly

BRIONY JAMES

Sudden

His tie was loosened and his neck was bared,

White flesh rising from starched waves of linen,

Rising like Orpheus, my ears and eyes are snared

As he turned his head, inviting sin and
Tendons corded and twisting in a dance.

Short of breath, I heard such velvet sound

That wrapped in its tone and rapt, entranced

To watch the pulse that shifts, throbs and pounds

Within that ivory column of reverberating flesh.

My heat within from ember to flame paints

Pictures of reward, release, restraint.

I watch him swallow, smile, refreshed

And think to pull that knot so very tight

And secure myself from lusting at first sight.