Spying
By Charlene Pierce
They were tangled in each other,
sleeping sideways at the foot of the bed,
a white sheet draped and tucked
and partially wrapped them.
An oscillating fan blew
the one free sheet corner
like a dilettante’s wave.
I was too young, too naïve
to know what happened.
But maybe it was the purity
of the white sheet,
or their nakedness,
or the emptiness of the room
making them the center of the universe,
or the way they were tangled together,
his chin to her hip,
her leg wrapped between his,
her arm under his and over his back
the sheet wrapped around them,
as if a pull on the one loose corner
would cause body parts to spool out,
or maybe nothing would fall,
and it would pull them tighter together,
comfortable being uncomfortable,
glorious in their nakedness,
that made me think
this must be love.
Charlene Pierce founded the Nebraska Poetry Society, a non-profit organization, with the not-so-secret mission to get everyone hooked on poetry. Her work has been published in "Misbehaving Nebraskans," "The Good Life Review, which was nominated for “Best of the Net,” "805 Lit, Quarter(ly)," and others. She is a Copyeditor for "Raleigh Review" and published "The Poet's Journal: A Beginner's Workbook for Writing Poetry." She is in the Pacific University MFA program. By day, she is a freelance writer appearing on websites and blogs across the country and local magazines