Karen Terrey

ONE NIGHT STAND

His white teeth flash, her head dips back, his line gallops roughly past a cheek, she parries, intimacy of a whisper coyly reigned in.

Night is an arm.

A kiss. Just the lower lip, noses bridging, eyelids closed like doors. She hears him fall asleep.

At the breakfast diner, silence. Coffee’s meniscus drops, rises, drops. Held high, plastic menus hide what was bared and hard on hurried sheets just stained.

Day is a curtain.

Karen Terrey holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College. She is the poetry editor for Quay, a literary arts journal, and balances her time between teaching creative writing and teaching skiing in North Lake Tahoe. Her poems can be read in Moonshine Ink, Poet’s Espresso, Sierra Nevada Review, Autumn Sky Poetry, Concelebratory Shoehorn Review, and elsewhere.