WHAT’S WRONG WITH
making love to your
husband who no longer
lives with you the night
before you leave for your
weekend retreat just
because he, having
agreed to overlap your
early departure to care
for your small son, appears
in the bathroom naked
and erect as you sit steeping.
What’s wrong with slipping
under the lifted wing he has made
of the covers, against the breastbone
of the bird your two bodies make.
What’s wrong with finding him
more beautiful at this distance:
lens adjusted to the immediate
taste of his tongue that has become
its own language since leaving you.
What’s wrong with taking him in
the way you would a galaxy
on a moonless night, this
pattern you have traveled by
dipping its cup
and spilling light.
—from Rattle #38, Winter 2012
_________
Sage Cohen: “Life breaks all of us open again and again and again. I am a collector of shards. By making mosaics of words, there is nothing wasted, nothing lost, nothing that cannot be reconstituted into transcendence.” (web)
