INTER-VIEW

Rays of light play: with a curtain, that door, two lamps

turning off.  They refer: to sofa, to ashtray, plate, remote:

here? see?  Jesus, it's right here.  Behind the fallen blinds.

You've introduced one word (out) to another word (get):

sayings of love and sayings of disgust begin to look alike.

Most of the time I keep the basil on the spice rack above

the stove.  Yesterday, recall, I threw the plastic red-capped

bottle at the window, and it rolled, it rolled, and it rolled. 

Our angles, I know, must choose to meet: by virtue,

by the fridge leaning there with screwy legs: really,

would you care for coffee? you could rest—the sun

is only risen half an angle up, see? we have so much

to drink about, to think about in lusty playful ways:

every position under the sun, arms and legs stretching.

Whatever we see, it lies here with us in bed, rays of light

making on my face a half-smile of apology, the reference

to remote: here, I'll turn it off or pause if you like, drink

the coffee brewed for you, the suck of breathing-before: a kiss.

J.D. Schraffenberger is the winner of the Seattle Review's 2005 Poetry Contest, and his fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize by The Louisville Review. His other work appears or is forthcoming in Paterson Literary Review, Wisconsin Review, Poet Lore, Brevity, Dogwood, Poetry Midwest, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Fourth River, English Journal, Syntax, the strange fruit, and elsewhere.  He is the editor of Harpur Palate and co-director of Binghamton University's annual creative writing conference, Writing By Degrees.