When Loss Attends Passion

After I pulled out of you, our
bodies pearled with semen
and sleep, you whispered,
"I know their name. They’re
tangerines, not oranges." And I
knew your meaning, what you
have added. I used to believe
that every accumulation and each
accretion of love meant a losing.
But your room--this peach light,
this filling incense, these sheets,
this window emptying its diffuse
gray upon your face--and I cannot
bear to think of love
as any kind of losing, except
for the usual stuff that decays
into softening, the aftermath
and afterfigures of our sex, the
expired vulnerabilities that we hide
with compliments of good sex. And
you tell me they’re tangerines, and you
kiss me, here, in this quieting of air
we shelter, where we are healed,
wholed, held.

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