Holding In

                     Holding In

She lies and looks at him, his now closed eyes,

His slightly glossy eyelids with a glint

Of brown and purple in their shine.  His thighs

She does not look at.  They contain the hint

Of forceful thrusting still, a hint of hair

Involved, that force enough to linger still

Inside her memory’s guts.  He did not spare

Her, thrusting shard-like, steep.  Thrusts made her shrill

With need like pangs, perhaps like pangs to come

In childbirth if he had his way.  She turns

Unknown to him.  She’d felt his spurting thrum

And now inside his malest sterness burns.

  She welcomes this, this utterness, his shot

    Along eternity.  She holds it, taut.

Phillip Whidden