THE MUSEUM ISSUE Alan King   The Lovers after a painting by Jacob Lawrence a boy embraces his girlfriend in a movie theatre parking lot before they're tonguing their initials in each other's mouths and on a Saturday evening like this one—your body glowed hot and bright after holding and kissing a girl for the first time under a street light that summer the heat wave hit you were in high school, and the cool spray of hydrants couldn't extinguish your friends burning for that sweet connection satisfaction only through the entanglement of limbs and thighs, what Rashad discovered in Nicole's bedroom while her folks were away or what "Pretty Boy" Frank was after—slipping out the back while Natalie's jealous boyfriend yells to her window from the front yard     A Cave Canem fellow and Vona Alum, Alan King's fiction and poems have appeared in the Arabesques Review, Warpland, The Amistad, and Fingernails Across the Chalkboard: Poetry and Prose on HIV/AIDS, among others. His work was also part of Anacostia Exposed, a collaborative exhibit with Irish photographer Mervyn Smyth that showcased the life and energy of Anacostia.   Published in Volume 10, Number 1, Winter 2009.   Read more by this author: Alan King on Charles Simic: US Poets Laureate Issue Alan King on Karibu Books: Literary Organizations Issue