Esther

My first lover lived in a
mobile home on cinder blocks.
No cellar, no attic,
a thin wall between her and the exhausts
of cars, or their abandoned ancestors,
metal hulks wedged together,
rust uppermost
A photograph of her father
(who left when she was six)
was jammed against a souvenir shot glass,
Florida, 1969,
everything cramped, wearied by
lack of oxygen.
That first kiss was so claustrophobic,
fumbling at each other's buttons,
elbows slamming the walls.
On top of her,
barely knowing what to do,
what to make of her smells,
a struggle for little reward,
felt like 1 was working in
some low paying job,
not so much making love
as spending all we could afford.

​John Grey has been published recently in the Echolocation, Santa Fe Poetry Review and Caveat Lector, and has work upcoming in Clark Street Review, GW Review and the Potomac Review.