To be idiomatic in a vacuum, it is a shining thing!

This was back when sex was still mainly personal,

something reliable enough to transform random

moments, exciting as an uncapped glass of gasoline

in one hand and a lit match flickering in the other,

bumbling drunk down a rocky path in the dark …~

It was the end time

of old time, old school, uncomplicated sex before

sex became political, before it was a “choice,”

before it was renamed “safe” and “unsafe,”