The Quick, By DAVID HUDDLE
<i> From "The Nature of Yearning" (Peregrine Smith Books: $9.95). Huddle lives in Burlington, Vt. He teaches at the University of Vermont and at the Breadloaf School of English. </i> (copyright) <i> 1992 by David Huddle</i>
His wife’s thumbnail,
bitten short that way
tells the man nothing,
though he finds himself
oddly aware of it.
He has never seen her
put her teeth to it.
So one day he asks her,
When you do this, what do you think about? Lightly he touches her thumb.
Nothing , she says.
Color comes to her face.
She puts that hand in her lap
and covers it with the other.
Upstairs that night he finds her
sitting on the edge of their bed
in the dark, in only her slip,
her arms crossed, her head bowed.
When he kneels in front of her,
and reaches to take down
the little straps, he knows
what she is about to say:
Don’t. Please don’t.
