Catherine Staples' poems have appeared in The Southern Review, Michigan Quarterly, Third Coast, Commonweal, and Quarterly West; new poems are forthcoming in Prairie Schooner. She teaches in the Honors program at Villanova University.
Recumbent
The slack body of Adam
reclines above my desk,
his sex languid, not yet.
His arm outstretched
wearily like a lady
who's been offering
her hand to gentlemen
all day, but will do so
once more.
Civil, if not
gracious, offering
of what is due.
Waiting for the shock
that will telegraph
the news to the rest of his body,
our world—an awakening,
a drowning.
The provinces set
for the next flood.
