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- If I Must Give Something Up
If I cannot
feel again the astonishment of first kisses,
those tentative mouths discovering
how much a body can promise
before either of us has learned its language,
and if I cannot remember the first
delicate shock of being undressed,
the fabric slipping away,
my hair falling everywhere,
alive to the smallest current of air,
or feel a hand arrive unexpectedly
from the front, from behind,
then perhaps I will be content
to become the old poet—
the celebrated old poet.
I will sit back in my high chair,
silver-tongued and mysterious,
dispensing small truths
with enough mischief to keep them listening,
while the young gather around me,
polished and eager,
especially the beautiful ones,
their hands restless at their sides,
their compliments already rehearsed,
their mouths full of praise
for what remains of my beauty,
for the mind that has not yet deserted me,
leaning nearer as evening deepens,
their notebooks forgotten,
their questions becoming something else.
I will open the locked rooms
where I have kept my private weather
and scatter what I find there
like petals across a table,
letting the young men
take my ringed hands between theirs,
testing the pulse beneath the thinness
of the years,
reminding me that blood, too,
has its stubborn memory.
I will want their new mouths
close to my weathered cheeks,
their foolish, beautiful talk
continuing long after dinner,
after the wine, after something sweet,
their shirts slightly disordered,
their trousers perhaps too tight,
and I will lie awake afterwards,
tasting the faint warmth
of the last goodnight
until even that disappears.
- The Music Between Us
When you come close,
the room grows quiet around us.
Your fingers settle on my wrist.
The tap in the next room
keeps time with the evening.
I have heard drums shake the night,
trumpets summon the restless from sleep.
Still, nothing follows me
like your thumb moving over my knuckles
while you listen to a story
you have heard me tell before.
In the morning, you leave
your cup beside the sink,
a crease in the pillow,
one sentence unfinished
because we thought there would be time.
By afternoon, the cup is washed.
The pillow has recovered its shape.
Only the tap continues,
drop after measured drop,
keeping a rhythm
I cannot quite place.
- The Hunger That Learns
I thought I knew the shape of longing
before your name began to live
in the unguarded corners of my day—
between the kettle’s first song
and the closing of a door,
between the last Keke home
and the hour sleep loosens its hold.
Now every meeting leaves something behind.
Your laughter stays after you have gone;
sometimes, washing a cup,
I remember the shape of your hand
around a story you were telling
and smile without knowing why.
