After we have talked

about me, and after you have spoken
of your past lovers, whom you neither
named nor called lover, and after you
have told me that you never
said to a man, I love you,
I did not believe you at first,
until later, after I first
disentangled your clothes from you,
letting them slide to the floor
from your bed, I kissing
your throat, first mistaking
your pain and release as lust,
until I heard you say,
"I can’t believe this," meaning
exactly that, and I understood
then, never pry, but only
pain and release, and I never
wanted to know any man’s
name whom you did not love.
I do not remember the first
time you said you loved me.
Rather I think of our empty clothes,
the entwined aftermaths of a man
turning toward a woman he loves
a woman toward a man she loves,
and the air so saturated with light
and spring, our clothes touched us,
ginger, to our skin as we dressed each
other, eager to do this again, soon.

*next*