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​East Fork:

A Journal of the Arts​​


Masquerade of Hopeless Desire
By: Robert Stewart

I lie in wakeful solitude in the morning afterglow. I feel your warm naked body across mine; your legs split around my left thigh, as you lay asleep upon my chest. Your head rests on my right shoulder; your brown hair tousled; spread in disarray upon the bed. I feel your soft breasts upon my burly chest and feel the weight of your love with my every breath. My left hand rests on your supple hip; my right traces circles just below your shoulder blades. But it’s imagination, a phantom, a masquerade of hopeless desire.

You really lie huddled in your corner of our queen sized bed without shape or sensuality; a pillow placed strategically between us. Has it really been forty or more years since I last left you a virgin and realized the ecstasy of full manhood in my youth? Since we both came virginal to the bridal chamber to consummate our vow and the two became one in flesh? Since I first felt our hearts beat as one. Since our love knew no boundaries and our pleasure was unconstrained?

That vow is expressed only in faithfulness now; the one flesh gradually became two once more. The mystery and passion have been worn down by familiarity and the loss of health and vigor. The luster ironically tarnished in child bearing and nurture, the fruit of our intimacy. No, not so! Rather in the demise of romance. The art of cupid, once lively vital and central in our lives; put to death by neglect and fatigue. I lie in wakeful solitude desperately wishing you could gift me with a first time, yet again.