If it weren’t for all the blood,
we’d be laughing our heads off—
my husband and I, this intern and her nurse.
His gash is messy but not deep.
One threads, the other sews,
alternating hands, tidy as quilters.
My supernumerary hands
manage the forms. They invite me
in neat print to detail the reason for our visit.
It’s difficult to explain
with a straight face.
I consider answering, Physics.
Successful sex underwater requires
an encyclopedic understanding
of inertia; as when walking in space,
each minute action can engender
an exaggerated reaction.
It’s essential to remain anchored
to a fixed object.
I might have cradled him in my hands,
fingers laced in his fine wet hair,
and only grazed my knuckles. Instead,
as I clung to the concrete edge,
he thrashed and smacked his head
against the wall.
That sudden slip
engendering its exaggerated reaction:
the blot of pink water expanding;
the stunned and silent drive,
the diffident foursome
in this pale green room.
The admitting nurse
wears an engagement ring—
a diamond, no wedding band.
Whose place will it be to introduce
the higher math of love?
Will she herself derive the sad equation
monogamy = monotony?
And the space beyond the question
is so small. How to explain
the constant need to reinvent desire?
So much simpler to present
the pat, conventional fiction
than reveal this unspeakable thirst
or how gingerly we cradle it
in our cupped hands.
Caron Andregg holds an M.S. in television/radio/film from The Newhouse School (Syracuse University) and an M.F.A. in creative writing from San Diego State University. Her poems have appeared in Spillway, Rattle, Poetry International, Solo, and many other journals, as well as in the anthology Line Drives: 100 Contemporary Baseball Poems. She runs a web design and marketing company with too much help from office cats.