her submissive streak

From WHY THINGS BURN Copyright © 2002 Daphne Gottlieb. Used by permission of Soft Skull Press, Inc.

She's
kinky,

and she's
given up dating.

She's fallen in love and
given up

dating and
her whips

as youthful
foolishness.

Her chaps are gathering dust in the closet
and her corset sits like an empty saddle

after the horse has left or run
away, or been flogged to death.

He's not like
the others.

He's a very special
man, she says.

I'm glad he makes you
so happy, I tell her.

He treats me so well,
she says.

The weekend I visited,
he was hunting deer

with his father.
It's okay, she tells me.

He eats what he kills.
Okay.

It's like that sometimes,
I guess.

Maybe something is only yours
when you can do as you please with it

since now, she has
no need

for the ridiculous literal
liturgy of S&M—

no more dress-up.
No make-believe.

All the black leather
she needs

is the E-Z boy recliner
where her love is parked

with one of his hands wrapped around a remote,
the other, a bottle of beer.

She's right. It's kinky,
the way he doesn't look away

from the TV,
as her head bobs

in his lap
like a fisherman's float

on a nature program,
hectic

with the pace
his breath sets.

His crotch swells
under her mouth's

prowess. He's such
a sweetheart

he waits
until the

commercials
to come.