They tug at buttons – his shirt, her blouse –
swiftly cleaving zips, jeans, skirt,
driven in their searching, each for the other’s skin,
to share the frenzy of their bodies’ repeated collision.
The house is unfurnished, bare,
a street near the Old Kent Road.
They make love but do not speak.
On the living room floor, on the scuffed remains of carpet,
among fag ends, empty beer cans, glasses with dried traces old red wine,
the scattered plastic cases of CDs – opened discs releasing rainbows-
beneath the panes of tall Georgian windows.
It happens again, week on week, as regular as the passing traffic:
Wednesday afternoons, the door bell trembles
she opens to him, he enters her.
Half a dozen of us watch from the dark of the stalls
not porn, nor Hollywood’s perfect skin, something deeper
in their unspoken passion, their honest lust for each other’s sex.
© Steve Walter
Kent & Sussex Poetry Society, Folio 56, 2002