When your sheets lie cool
and tight corner to corner,
desire simmers and nags,
but when the blanket rises
and rumples over the tossing
landscape of hips, shoulders,
and knees, desire flourishes,
ablaze like crown fire, burns sweet,
and finally sinks into denouement,
a perfect haiku, a butterfly drifting
above the nod of blossoms, then
still above lavender petals.
Over the past seventy years, Malcolm Glass has published sixteen books of poetry and non-fiction. His poetry, plays, and short stories have appeared in many literary journals, including Poetry, The Sewanee Review, The Waterwheel Review, Prairie Schooner, and Rockvale Review. In 2018, Finishing Line Press published his chapbook of poems, Mirrors, Myths, and Dreams, and in late 2024 they released his triple-genre collection of poems, stories, and plays, Her Infinite Variety.