Vacation Sex

We’ve been at it all summer,
from the Canadian border
to the edge of Mexico,
just barely keeping it American
but doing okay just the same,
in hotels under overpasses
or rooms next to ice machines,
friends’ fold-out couches,

in-laws’ guest quarters
—wallpaper and bedspreads festooned
with nautical rigging,
tiny life rings and coiled tow ropes—
even one night in the car, 

~
the plush backseat not plush enough,
the door handle giving me an impromptu
sacro-cranial chiropractic adjustment,
the underside of the front seat
strafing the perfect arches of his feet.
~
And one long glorious night
in a cabin tucked in the woods
where our crooning and whooping
started the coyotes singing.
~
But the best was when we got home,
our luggage cuddled in the vestibule
—really just a hallway
but because we were home
it seemed like a vestibule—
~
and we threw off our vestments,
which were really just our clothes
but they seemed like garments, like raiment,
like habits because we felt sorely religious,
dropping them one by one on the stairs:

white shirts,

black bra,

blue jeans,

red socks,

then stood naked in our own bedroom,

~

our bed with its drab spread,
our pillows that smelled like us:
a little shampoo-y,
maybe a little like myrrh,
the gooseberry candle we light sometimes
when we’re in the mood for mood,
our own music and books
and cap off the toothpaste
and cat on the window seat.

~

Our window looks over a parking lot—
a dental group
—and at night we can hear the cars whisper past the 24-hour Albertson’s
where the homeless couple buys their bag of wine
before they walk across the street
to sit on the dentist’s bench under a tree
and swap it
and guzzle it
and argue loudly
until we all fall asleep.



"Vacation Sex" by Dorianne Laux