There's the joke about the tension that arises when a man and woman unexpectedly find themselves alone in a room with a bed. Strangers and friends, one is pale and kind, belly thick from responding to emails all day. It's night, and the other's smile's a bit effusive, body, too wound, feet bound by brown shoes. He or she is perhaps married to someone they know. But the primal impulse is a banging of the funny bone--jerked arm that nearly tips the glass of water on the bedside table. So close, they can hear the automatic clock work, so close they are to laughter, almost dispelling the immediate thought, the odd-duck pair, upfront duty and way in the back want. Smiling, she says something about her need to get back, he laughs, they're moving now to the door, one and the other on the periphery, how it will go dark quickly, with a click.

A bit of a misnomer, as if the shame were hers. As if it were not I but her mother, father, brother, her more chaste friends peeping out the window. Their shame coarsens her veins, blooms her face. Curly hair, thick thighs, too-short blue dress, stepping from the black Corvette with dark windows and ragtop in morning. An older man, and her head is down, small smile played about her lips, feet bare. Hips swing as she rounds the big house to the garage apartment, feet black from the path. There she'll dirty the cool sheets she slips between without clothes, without a bath, to replay the night, her pressed and fired body. Smile, the edge of a full cup.