Winter and the Brass Poker By Kelly Levan My girl and I leaned toward the brass poker as if it were the kind of hot you lean toward— I suppose it was when you haven't got anything else, and we hadn't; we'd heated it up on the stovetop— we had the stovetop—but we couldn't lean over that because she hated the smell of the kitchen. Oh my girl, she stood in the living room in a long nightgown full of daisies, these furry rabbits on her feet, and this poker about two inches from her right cheek— I fought a funny impulse to knock it at her eye, and instead leaned my cheek against her left one, felt her smile against my cheek, felt a very little bit of heat from the poker, and though I had to go to the bathroom and the poker had already begun to cool and my feet were bare and cold on the wood floor, though all these things, I knew right then this was the best we could do. I wanted to think it was romantic and noticed that it might not be. © 2002, Kelly Levan