What Lonely Won’t Say

A Mexican restaurant is no place
for a married man’s hands
to wander. When his left slides
up my skirt, I stop it, but wonder
if I’m slick enough for his ring
to slip inside me. Imagine the gold
rooting, the sour accomplice
stink. My tongue forked for the lies
to pass easy. No should be
the obvious reflex, not wrestling
with my parting knees, my eyes
unblinking, my mouth’s sudden
taste for salt.


by Emily Rose Kahn-Sheahan

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Emily Rose Kahn-Sheahan lives in Chicago where she works hard at many different things. Her work has recently appeared in Columbia Poetry Review, TriQuarterly, After Hours, and Compose. Her chapbook, Cigarette Love Songs and Nicotine Kisses was published by Cross+Roads Press.