They rub the blue out of their bluejeaned crotches.
They rip the teeth out of their red-hot zippers.
They fan the flames, and then curl up like kippers.
At last they check their charioteering watches.
They tell each other where to meet next week.
They shake their leather jackets free of gunk,
and she with red nails combs her ducktailed hunk,
as he wipes damp mascara from her cheek.
From this day forth their dream becomes to make love
naked in bed, not fake it in a park
behind some bushes in the evening dark.
They swear that not again will they forsake love
in greasy leather garments, harshly studded,
to go home dirty, lying, and guilt-flooded.
About E.M. Schorb
E. M. Schorb has published several collections of poetry, including Time and Fevers: New and Selected Poems (AuthorsHouse, 2004), which was chosen as a 2007 Eric Hoffer Book Award winner; A Fable & Other Prose Poems (2002), Murderer's Day (1998), winner of the Verna Emery Poetry Prize; 50 Poems (1987); and The Poor Boy and Other Poems (1975); and a chapbook, Like the Fall of Rome and Other Humanitarian Disasters (1980).
He is also the author of two novels: Paradise Square, which won the International eBook Award Foundation's Frankfurt eBook Award for "Best Fiction work originally published in eBook form," and Scenario for Scorsese (both Denlinger's Publishers, 2000).
His poems and prose have appeared in Best American Fantasy 2007, as well as The American Scholar, The Beloit Poetry Journal, The Chattahoochee Review, Chelsea, The Literary Review, The Massachusetts Review, The Southern Review, The Sewanee Review, The Texas Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, and The Yale Review, among other journals.
His honors include Fellowships in Literature from the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center and the North Carolina Arts Council, and grants from the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation, the Carnegie Fund for Authors, and Robert Rauschenberg & Change, Inc. (for illustrations in The Poor Boy).
He lives in Mooresville, North Carolina.
