The Day After Clarence Thomas Got Sworn In

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.