A Room She Could See Through

Art: Caity Tobias (via flickr.com)

From the window, she memorized his ripped muscles, honey skin,

And gritty determination to break ground

Houses didn’t get built in a day

Land needed to be cleared

Sewer piped

Foundations laid

Electricity, heating inserted

This stranger creating her dream cottage

With sweat staining his t-shirt

Would need rest and fortification,

Distraction

He bossed his crew around, half father, half dictator

That turned her on too

Plus the stone set of his jaw when he barked orders

She had use for that

 

In another life, she had taken her grandmother’s advice to avoid men like this

Rugged, good-looking, independent, bow-to-no-one types,

And set her sights on quiet, bookish men who craved family and forevers,

But now she wanted just moments in a room she could see through

with this stranger whose body she had memorized

He was either going to agree or not

She was either going to be a free woman or a mouse

Opening the door with an uncomplicated smile,

She took him a tall glass of iced tea