Cycles by Jennifer Rudsit
![[Skyline Inn, Motel Sign]](skyline-inn.jpg)
I took the pills after we made love.
Slipped the blue plastic case
from my purse in the dark, felt
each plastic bubble, and pressed
until they slid into my palm,
placed them on my tongue.
The love I brought
forth from my past
disappeared
the night you moved me
towards a cheap motel
stood in the glow of a streetlight
through the dirty glass windowpanes.
You put your hands on my face,
rubbed my nose, like an Eskimo,
told me that you and I could never
have casual sex.
After making love, you cried
and slept next to me
and when I turned
you slipped on top
kissed me
thrusting tongue into my mouth.
You said I love you
but that girl who answered
should have stayed inside
her little cage of cornfields
and pickup trucks
because the gypsy woman
who moved away from you
was dangerous and angry.
She will swallow down
the blue bitterness
thinking she has made
a grave mistake
ending the possibility
before it could find
a place to begin.
BIO: Jennifer Rudsit received her undergraduate degree from Purdue University and her Masters in Creative Writing from Northern Michigan University. She is currently a creative writing teacher in a high school in Northborough, MA. Her poems have appeared in: North Coast Review, White Pelican Review, 360 Degrees, Alembic, Anthology, Sierra Nevada Review, Nanny Fanny, Small Brushes, Hard Row to Hoe, Limestone, Into the Teeth of the Wind, The Advocate, The English Journal, Harbor Islands Review, Free Fall, Omnific, Thought Magazine, Zillah, Steam Ticket, Saranac Review, Roux Magazine, Word Wrights and The Haight Ashbury Journal. EMAIL: comments@moondance.org