On Continuing

One day she realized she had
failed -- there was no use
worrying. She didn't know how
little they had advanced. For
some time their recent relations
had been neither this nor that.

He seemed to think she should
know something. She smiled faintly,
"before you go." That startled him.
Then there was a touch.

Swift strokes, then the thickening,
the stiffening, the electric rise
in her hand. On the brink of it,
he had to turn to watch, her
hand straight ahead across.

Finally he came, falling gently to
her naked. There was nothing they
could not see: the sky, the early
spring snow, the nature of continuing.