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'Lovemaking in America'

Simon Huggins
/
Creative Commons

by  Rob Schlegel

I watch a silent film about the sea and I am forced

To imagine the sound the schooner is making.

Upstairs, you fill the bath with everything that has

Or could ever happen between us.

You think you have lived this day before. Earlier

At the fair we found a magician who claimed

He could transport us to a place where the new version of me

Could find the new version of you.

But the magician was only a magician

Whose oldest son took his mother's maiden name.

Somewhere in the future, we are remembering this day

And the wind is gentle over the grass as the old cows

Coddle their young and all of them lift their heavy heads

At the sound of tired people making love.

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Rob Schlegal
Rob Schlegal

Rob Schlegel is the author of January Machine (Four Way Books, 2014) and The Lesser Fields (Center for Literary Publishing at Colorado State University, 2009). He coedits the .

Copyright 2020 Montana Public Radio. To see more, visit .

Chérie Newman is an arts and humanities producer and on-air host for Montana Public Radio, and a freelance writer. Her weekly literary program, The Write Question, is broadcast on several public radio stations, and available online at PRX.org and MTPR.org.