Jesse Breite

Running in the Rain with Emily is the most romantic thingI’ve done in years. She is pissed.the relentless cars of Atlanta splashher thighs up and down Piedmont Road.I’m careless. I love the way her hair curlswhen it rains. All her make-up runs off,and I see her face as perfectas anything original. She threatensto kick me in the balls, and I look to heavenwith a sigh. I have dreamed of girlslike this—all spandex and fire.When we finish our run, she willprobably thwack me in the shinwith her swift-wet right foot,then she will let me convince herhow transcendent it is to be half-grown,with another half-grown creatureand to be able to run caging up suchpotent juicy juice—coursing through herveins and into my arteries. When wecome out of her apartment after the fightand a few glasses of water, I will ask herto run once more tomorrow,and she will say yes. Jesse Breite’s recent poetry has appeared in Tar River Poetry, The Nashville Review, and Prairie Schooner. He has been featured in Town Creek Poetry and The Southern Poetry Anthology, Volume V: Georgia. FutureCycle Press published his first chapbook, The Knife Collector, in November. Jesse lives with his wife, Emily, in Atlanta, Georgia, but he was raised in Little Rock, Arkansas, and considers it his home.