In our long, accelerating years,
adolescence a dot in the rearview
mirror, we could not anticipate
this return—clandestine bed
in a parent’s house, the startled gasp
of senses wakened, the breathless
stifle of a not-so-secret tryst
that even nearing voices cannot
uncouple. We are pulled back
to youth, this incarnation made
sweeter by the swallowing
of each other, of ourselves, even
of our cries, embraced by the quickening
within and around each other.Cynthia Rausch Allar received her MFA in Writing from Spalding University in 2004. She has
been published in anthologies such as Myrrh, Mothwing, Smoke from Tupelo Press, as well as
journals Naugatuck River Review, Evening Street Review, Off the Rocks, Paper Street, Bloom, New Millennium Writings, and others.