Ex Sex
We both committed some adultery
That led to our becoming ex and ex.
We never got along, and now we’re free,
Which doesn’t mean that we can’t still have sex.
I wouldn’t say that we remain good friends.
Together, we would be two nerveless wrecks.
It’s not how love begins; it’s how it ends.
But sex? We have no balances, no checks.
For sex is the allure of flesh on flesh.
We now bed down on lawns. We’ve used boat decks.
Apart, we’ll feel a sudden need to mesh.
We’ve even done it on some mountain treks.
Yet recently, the fun’s begun to pall.
We might as well be married after all.
A professor of English and the creative writing program director at Montclair State University, David Galef has published over 200 poems in The Yale Review, Shenandoah, Witness, Measure, etc., and was once the featured poet in Light. His two poetry volumes are Flaws and Kanji Poems. Recent books: the short story collection Tradeoffs and a co-edited anthology of stories by sexagenarians and up, 20 over 60. He’s also the editor of Vestal Review, the oldest flash fiction magazine on the planet.