The Day After Clarence Thomas Got Sworn In

by Jesse Sensibar

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            We lie on towels, on a gravel bar. Naturally formed by an unnecessary, unnatural, man-made lake.

            She sits on a piece of white sandstone the size of a V.W. bug. The sunlight off the white sandstone bursts through her blond hair, then absorbed by her black bikini.

            She reads to us out loud, not in a timid way, but strong and confident, like she is speaking to children.

            She reads us smut. They are graphic angry words and surely must be illegal to read aloud from atop a pulpit in a National Recreation Area. In this white bread, clean cut, straight, missionary-position-only land.

            But on the day after the confirmation of Clarence Thomas, on the last warm day of fall, it all seems mild and inconsequential and somehow fitting and right.