LISA AND THE AFTERMATH AFTER SUNDAY.

Lisa dresses for school,
buttons up the blouse
with fumbling fingers.
She stares down at her

bed where she and Mona
had lain the day before.
The same sheets, pillows
having no doubt her hair,

her smell. She puts on her
school tie, loops it through,
her fingers sensing the
smoothness of the cloth.

She remembers how they
had made love on that bed,
how they had lain naked and
hot and kissing. Best Sunday

ever, she muses, looking away,
stepping into her school skirt,
pulling it over her waist.
Her mother had called out

to her some minutes before.
Breakfast ready, not in the
mood for food. She looks out
the window at the farmyard

across the way, cows heading
out to the fields, her father
following, bellowing, a stick
in his hand, his arms raised

to move them on. She sits on
the bed and takes a pillow
and holds it to her nose
and sniffs. Mona’s scent,

borrowed from her mother,
she had said. She feels along
the sheet with her hand.
They had laid there, their

bodies, their lips kissing,
their hands holding. No one
had known they were
making love. Her parents

and family had thought them
drying after getting drench
in the Sunday downpour.
She closes her eyes, imagines

Mona is still there, thinks
she feels her hands around
her waist. Her mother’s voice
calls from downstairs. She sighs,

stands up and slips on her
socks and shoes. Leans down
and puts a kiss on her top

pillow where Mona had

laid her head, now she has only
images and memories instead.