Chella Courington

Taste

Sade 

Remember the first time, the night you folded me over the back of the red sofa. Five minutes until we leave, you said. Sade’s fuck me voice floated through the apartment—my thighs pressed against polished cotton & melted like a Dali clock.  

Socks

We should try something new, I said, leading you to the four-poster, my great grandmother’s bed, crafted for shorter bodies. Our feet hung over the end. Four socks, black wool—each held  your ankles, your wrists. Da Vinci’s man, now my woman. Arms at 10 & 2, legs at 7 & 5.   

Sablé

The French do it best, I said Sunday & offered you sandy cookies in a round tin. Claudel’s nudes waltzed on top & melded like butter on our tongues before I covered your lips in mine—the smoky scent of coffee rising from the press.

Chella Courington was raised in Southern Appalachia in a storytelling family. Her creative publications include one novella, fourteen chapbooks of poetry & fiction, and innumerable poems & stories in journals and anthologies. Twenty years ago, she moved from Alabama to California to give her the distance to understand her past.