You had a thing for childless men,
I had a thing for fatherless women.
You could see the bottom of my glass,
I could look at the white flood of your headlights.
You took me in,
I tried to love you back to satiety.
We hold each other’s gaze in the night
the way people in porn movies sometimes do.
It’s the reverence of most strangers for the unexpected
after their eyes become accustomed to the gloom:
as if the definite shape of things were an achievement.

Gianni Skaragas is a novelist, screenwriter and playwright. He writes in both English and Greek. His short fiction has appeared in World Literature Today, Crannóg, Midnight Circus, The Tower Journal, Story Shack, and elsewhere. His play, Prime Numbers, premiered off-Broadway in New York in 2009. He is a Fulbright Fellow and member of the Association of European Journalists.