Weekend in Vals
︎︎︎ Joe Amato
︎ July 26, 2025
They found their room, the bed
beside a bare window
in the rented villa.
Settling beneath the duvet, she asked,
a little tired, if she might take off
her bra, and he said, go for it,
assuming from all he’d heard,
what brutality an underwire was,
not knowing she was too young
to wear such bear traps.
With a flick and toss,
he imagined her breasts
nibbling the fleece of her old sweatshirt
as the carp nose
the water at feeding time
to swallow cornflakes and cat food
with a breath of air
at the lake in the park.
They settled in and said goodnight
from each edge of the bed.
She fell asleep. She was so good at it.
Still he couldn’t figure it,
a weekend in Vals
sharing quarters, bed, and covers,
her amber head against the pillow,
one black night of trust
before the lambent morning’s
ridge of mountains rose
familiar from the bottle labels
snow-encrusted in the dawn.
beside a bare window
in the rented villa.
Settling beneath the duvet, she asked,
a little tired, if she might take off
her bra, and he said, go for it,
assuming from all he’d heard,
what brutality an underwire was,
not knowing she was too young
to wear such bear traps.
With a flick and toss,
he imagined her breasts
nibbling the fleece of her old sweatshirt
as the carp nose
the water at feeding time
to swallow cornflakes and cat food
with a breath of air
at the lake in the park.
They settled in and said goodnight
from each edge of the bed.
She fell asleep. She was so good at it.
Still he couldn’t figure it,
a weekend in Vals
sharing quarters, bed, and covers,
her amber head against the pillow,
one black night of trust
before the lambent morning’s
ridge of mountains rose
familiar from the bottle labels
snow-encrusted in the dawn.
Joe Amato is a writer and culture strategist based in San Francisco. He received an inaugural Passage Prize for poetry.
Also by Joe: Sweet Parallels!
Also by Joe: Sweet Parallels!