Pricksongs and Descants

by Robert Coover

Bare thighs, no girdles, nothing up there but a flimsy pair of panties and soft adolescent flesh.

How tiny and rubbery it is! she thinks, soaping between the boy’s legs, giving him his bath. Just a funny jiggly little thing that looks like it shouldn’t even be there at all. Is that what all the songs are about?

the young thighs exposed to the flickering television light,