Bed
::
“Well, we’re not sixteen anymore,” I say softly.
::
“Funny you should say that . . . ”
and you begin
talking memory, as if we were
in fact sixteen,
mistaking me for some distant
virginal mist
rising off female skin
like fog off a lake.
“I didn’t know you then,”
I reply. “I’m your wife
now—remember?
Happy also to be
your mistress, if you’d like.”
We’re laughing now,
under the covers,
his face near
my thighs. He comes up
for air, he’s a conspirator:
“Margaret likes that, too.”
::
Making love takes longer.
We make reservations
as if for dinner out.
Afternoons for delight,
bed? or sofa?
Well, isn’t the body
a space-time event?
Isn’t it a river,
or the color of the ridge
seen through winter woods
at four, when sun
spills gold on it, then
russet and purple,
dun and dusk?
::
“Your skin,” you murmur,
“soft—here, feel . . .
so beautiful. It’s so beautiful.
Here and now, snow
falling outside, and we’re
warm, inside each other. . . .
Have we ever done this before?”