Another Airplane Poem

I’m blushing. It’s the smell.

I can smell sour bread and sugar—an intimate smell.
The smell of unwashed bodies after sex.

I imagine the man naked, the intensity of the aroma exploding.

I think of the word crevice. A dirty word.

The man sits with the arm-rest raised.
The side of his stomach sneaks over the border.

I remember in college thinking of my professor’s naked body.
His voice a boat floating on a lazy river.

But I’d imagine his breasts.

Two pasty half-filled sacks of vanilla pudding.

I’d fight the urge to think of his penis—his balls—

Then, they’d appear—

two wrinkled, sagging moons, a soft, bloated space slug.

I am convinced he knew, just as I am now convinced

this man knows.

He will pull apart the sticky layers, the crevices, of my brain
and see his own naked, sugared body

staring back.

Allison Tobey earned her MFA from Antioch University in Los Angeles. She spent many years in many roles at Gertrude Press, including both managing and poetry editor. She is also English Faculty at Chemeketa Community College in Salem, Oregon. Her poetry has been published in many journals, including Rhino, Concho River Review, Sugar Hill Review, and Paper Nautilus.