Woodlawn Beach at Midnight

by Adam Hanover

The large beach rock—smooth, not quite flat,
but sloped with the gradient of an egg,
deeply creviced from years of high tide
to provide makeshift footrests for blind groping

in the August midnight—rests beneath us
like a miniature sand-capped mountain range.
Yes, Olympus, and you Demeter,
a drunken goddess seducing Iasion in the furrow.

But wait, disrupting our frolic, mighty Zeus
with a thunderbolt. Thunder, and the inevitable
flash of lightning. No—a red and blue police siren.

Carefully, to preserve our delicate eggshell bed, quietly,
to avoid detection by the floodlights, kiss me again
before we search the heavens for our clothes.

— from Juniper Volume 2, Issue 1