When Six Meets Nine

During the day it’s war
Our heated spats and unending standoffs
split your six from my nine
Into separate corners, separate worlds

You hate what I like:
Stupid comedies
Disco boots
Hot pink lipstick

You like what I hate:
Stale beer, inappropriate jokes
Auditoriums packed with red-faced shouters

But later when the lights dim and the kids are safely tucked,
Detente reigns
And your silly world of six invites my nine on top
With a towering throb curling upward and backwards and strong.

I ease into the saddle,
Eyes slowly finding a stillness my afternoon never offered
Arms and legs bracing for the coming quiver,
The dance of two shaking bodies
Clumsily melting into one

You squeeze your tongue between gritted teeth,
Licking, lapping,
Loving the way you push my voice into squeals
And animal howls,
The way you bring my knees to a buckle,
The way my hair sweeps across your thigh
Like a tumbleweed rolling down an abandoned highway.

The way our unhappy reality gets elbowed to the sidelines
Until none of it matters,
Not your stinky sweat clothes on the living room floor,
Not my stubborn ways and bad taste in movies

It is simultaneously my turn and your turn too
Both bodies coming unglued
And climbing to the light we are bathed in.

I kick and spit and twist and tremble and shake
You groan and grunt,
Chest heaving,
Limbs fighting off a titanic shiver.

I threaten to topple,
Stretching away from the ache
Because it’s too much,
Too warm,
Too intense,
Too many muscles tightening
Too much six rippling into an eruption under my nine
Everything all at once,
But really only one thing:
Us.

No more six
No more nine
Only two waring,
Clashing numbers falling together
Into accidental elegance.