Richard Robbins

Making Love on the Salt Flats

It took years in and out of dream
to find the white hot bed, the ancient
dust, the way to swim across her

breast, her thighs, as on a slow sail,
and she to find his nipple in her
teeth, to find ears and cock, until

they swam together into a
moment and away from it, the last
species under that sun, basalt

ranges slashing north like black fins
to form a growing ring, those jets miles high
leaving signatures of extinction.

Richard Robbins was raised in California and Montana. His most recent poetry collections are Radioactive City and Other Americas. Robbins currently directs the creative writing program and Good Thunder Reading Series at Minnesota State University, Mankato.