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already quite enough Sex Crime,
    I think I ought to be kept off the street.
    What are you doing for the next five years?

Troilism
Roddy Lumsden
    I could mention X, locked naked
    in the spare room by two so taken
    with each other, they no longer needed him,
    or Y who, with an erection in either hand,
    said she felt like she was skiing,
    or Z who woke in a hotel bed in a maze
    of shattered champagne glass
    between two hazy girls, his wallet light.
    Me? I never tried it, though like many
    I thought and thought about it
    until a small moon rose above a harvest field,
    which was satisfying, in its own way, enough.

Assurance
Emma Lazarus
    Last night I slept, and when I woke her kiss
    Still floated on my lips. For we had strayed
    Together in my dream, through some dim glade,
    Where the shy moonbeams scarce dared light our bliss.
    The air was dank with dew, between the trees,
    The hidden glow-worms kindled and were spent.
    Cheek pressed to cheek, the cool, the hot night-breeze
    Mingled our hair, our breath, and came and went,
    As sporting with our passion. Low and deep
    Spake in mine ear her voice: ‘And didst thou dream,
    This could be buried? This could be sleep?
    And love be thrall to death! Nay, whatso seem,
    Have faith, dear heart;
this is the thing that is
!’
    Thereon I woke, and on my lips her kiss.

Losing It to David Cassidy
Catherine Smith
    That hot evening, all through our clumsy fuck,
    David smiled down from the wall. His ironed hair,
    American teeth. Eyes on me, his best girl.
    And his fingers didn’t smell of smoke, he didn’t
    nudge me onto my back, like you did, grunting
    as he unzipped my jeans, complaining
    you’re so bony
, and demanding,
Now you do something –
    hold it like this.
David took my virginity
    in a room scented with white roses, having smoothed
    the sheets himself, slotted ‘How Can I be Sure?’
    into the tape machine. And when we were done
    he didn’t roll off, zip up and slouch downstairs
    to watch the end of
Match of the Day
with my brother,
    oh no, not David. He washed me, patted me dry
    with fat blue towels, his eyes brim-full of tears.

A Man Greets His Wife from Her Short Break Away
Rebecca Goss
    The first thing they do is embrace.
    Fat smiles stay on their faces
    all the way to the restaurant.
    He eats ribs with sticky, podgy fingers.
    She bites chicken wings with shiny lips.
    They have a pudding each and share another.
    In the car, she tells him about a girl she saw,
    with a short, spotted skirt that flapped
    around one long limb.
    ‘There wasn’t even a stump to satisfy me,
    just a space where the leg should’ve been.’
    ‘Was she very pretty?’
    ‘Yes she was.’
    They stop talking and at traffic lights
    he strokes her thigh, instead of saying
    how sad her story sounds. Quietly, he resents the one-legged girl
    for changing the mood between them, resents his wife
    for telling him the tale at all.
    Making love to her later, it’s a pretty teenager
    sitting astride his wide belly. One leg tucked behind,
    leaving the torso, smooth and deformed, moving over him.

Wanting to Think
Michael Schmidt
    Why, when I want to think of you, do I think of him?
    He may be dead, and yet he still lies with you
    Warming his calloused hands between your thighs.
    He may still be alive, and his lips for ever
    Puckered on your nipple, above your heart.
    I want to think about you in my arms, the way we were
    For a while. Then he came out of nowhere to stay.
    He was tall, and golden, stripped to the waist, when we sawed
    And chopped all autumn the firewood, heaped it
    Outside your kitchen door. You were always watching;
    You patted him on the back and sniffed the air
    Pungent with our sweat, you caught his smell.
    That autumn, when I lay with you, you started pretending
    These hands of mine were his hands in the dark, these lips
    His and the tufts in my armpits his and you inhaled
    Hungry, pressed against me, pressed against
    A man you were imagining in my place:
    Shaping, stretching me to fit your