It's hardly about forgiveness. His cock
shrivels with memory, the kiss
disappears – and this
is what no one tells you: it's forgetting
that makes a marriage stick.
Maybe the recoil
is a temporary retreat,
necessary withdrawal
to smaller chambers.
Or maybe we'll barter our fingers
for dozens of ribbed tentacles
and never lose our grip. Who's to say?
Every day we are unfaithful
in some new way.
©
is a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. Her poems have appeared in Indiana Review, Southern Humanities Review, The Cincinnati Review, and Bellevue Literary Review, among others. She lives in the California's Central Valley with her husband and young son.
Koster’s poem “Ice Plant” also appears in this issue.
