Reflecting Dreams
subset x
Ebony
by Peter Roberts

n an amorphous, white, mist-enshrouded world, she exists as a railroad train wrapped in bleached muslin. I am there in the same form. We make love. During our encounter, the narrator—a disembodied, British-accented, male voice—describes our sexual activities in logistical terms.

After our first sexual act, the boxcars, tank cars, gondola cars, and so on, of which we are composed, rearrange in preparation for a second round of intercourse. After the reconfiguration is complete, and we are once again wrapped in muslin, we make love a final time. The narrator continues his description, comparing the economic advantages and disadvantages of the two different configurations we have used.

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Peter Roberts has poems forthcoming in Timber Creek Review and SubtleTea, and has had poems and stories published in a number of literary magazines, including Illumen, Santa Clara Review, Ship of Fools, Ars Medica, The Sidewalk's End, Number One, Abyss & Apex, Homestead Review, Poesy, Chaffin Journal, Octavo, Blue Fifth Review, The Paumanok Review, Poem, Tryst, Lullaby Hearse, Lily, The Wisconsin Review, Bitter Oleander, Nebo, The William and Mary Review, Small Pond, New York Quarterly, Star*Line, and Confrontation, and in Poetic Voices Without Borders (Gival Press).

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