She

by Lora Maslenitsyna

She
who knows her worth to another’s loud
breath-escaped clapping of two lips
smacked by a finite possibility,
shut by a deflating desire and a smirk.
“I know,” she says, in turn to me.

I am caught, stark, by her calculation
like she is looking at my bare chest
saying, “that’ll do,” and a quick drag—
cigarettes to sharp teeth, where we’d call
tête in romancing the fantasy.

I am head-up-high holding why’s
while she, in response, is a flickering
thumb to philtrum; marked,
a distinctive signal the second pair knows
coming over here, two amber eyes,
grabbing hold of both cheeks and inflating.