All my stories are about being left,

all yours about leaving. So we should have known.

Should have known to leave well enough alone;

we knew, and we didn’t. You said let’s put

our cards on the table, your card

was your body, the table my bed, where we didn’t

get till 4 am, so tired from wanting

what we shouldn’t that when we finally found our heads,

we’d lost our minds. Love,I wanted to call you

so fast. But so slow you could taste each

letter licked into your particular and rose-like ear.

L, love, for let’s wait. O, for oh no, let’s not. V

for the precious v between your deep breasts

(and the virtue of your fingers

in the voluptuous center of me.)

 

Okay, E for enough.

 

Dawn broke, or shattered. Once we’ve made

the promises, it’s hard to add the prefix if. . . .

But not so wrong to try.

...