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Late at night, she separates her body,
leaves him dozing, hitches up
her cutoffs, yanks down the T-shirt,
forgets her shoes, runs for home.
The piled sealskin trips her, and she gasps,
fur spiking her calf
wet, oiled, sand-crusted. His smell,
but stronger, submerges her, waves of it lapping,
and her insides lurch with desire
for what, in the darkness, she can’t make out lying there
until, thinking of him of him, she gathers
the folds of skin to her chest. The smell appalls her,
its raw, watery meatiness. Her cheek flinches
at the clammy underside. But by now she has found
she can’t put it down.
It weighs as much as two six-packs.
In the streetlight, fur pricks
and glitters. Voracious, she drinks
the smell, beastly, nearly human.
This, she thinks, is what we want.
