by Catherine Bowman
They don't want to stop. They can't stop.
They've been going at it for days now,
for hours, for months, for years. He's on top
of her. She's on top of him. He's licking
her between the legs. Her fingers
are in his mouth. It's November.
It's March. It's July and there are palms.
Palms and humidity. It's the same man.
It's a different man. It's August and slabs
of heat waves wallow on tarred lots.
Tornadoes sprawl across open plains.
Temperatures rise. Rains accumulate.
Somewhere a thunderstorm dies. Somewhere
a snow falls, colored by the red dust
of a desert. She spreads her legs. His lips
suck her nipples. She smells his neck.
It's morning. It's night. It's noon.
It's this year. It's last year. It's four a.m.
It started when the city shifted growth
to the north, over the underground
water supply. Now the back roads are gone
where they would drive, the deer glaring into
the headlights, the Wetmore and Thousand Oaks,
the ranch roads that led to the hill country
and to a trio of deep moving rivers.
There were low water crossings. Flood gauges.
Signs for falling rock. There were deer blinds
for sale. There was cedar in the air.
Her hands are on his hips. He's pushing
her up and down. There are so many things
she's forgotten. The names of trees. Wars.
Recipes. The trench graves filled with hundreds.
Was it Bolivia? Argentina? Chile?
Was it gladioli that decorated the altar
where wedding vows were said? There was
a dance floor. Tejano classics
A motel. A shattered mirror. Flies.
A Sunbelt six-wheeler. Dairy Queens.
Gas Stations. The smell of piss and cement.
There was a field of corn, or was it cotton?
There were yellow trains and silver silos.
They can't stop. They don't want to stop.
It's Spring, and five billion inhale
and exhale across two hemispheres. Oceans
form currents and counter currents.
There was grassland. There was sugarcane.
There were oxen. Metallic ores.
There was timber. Fur-bearing animals.
Rice lands. Industry. Tundra. Winds
cool the earth's surface. Thighs press
against thighs. Levels of water fluctuate.
And yesterday a lightning bolt reached
a temperature hotter than the sun.
"Demographics" reprinted by permission of the author.
