Outside Your Darkened Door

the day after
one tipsy winter evening spent
making out in your car

I am crowded with disjunct sensations:

For instance, my back is killing me.
At my age, what I can do in the moment
limber, hungry,
leaves a bruise
(from the steering wheel, I figure)
And the tops of my thighs burn; and my left knee
from the emergency brake
which I ignored at the time.

a lingering sweetness,

to know you still could

do it, that way, you remembered --
without being asked.

Though it's been years. Like dreaming,
unfair, unavoidable. Or nearly.

in the suspension of belief
required
to justify betrayal.

You are left then,
the unfulfilled requests of
days now gone. And this
alone, this emptiness of history
would be sufficient unto shame...

the bruise, and the sweetness,
tell me I'm alive,
that some man somewhere can


balanced, alive alive-o
undone, unbound and unselfconscious
on his outstretched palm
fingers curled upward, inward,
while I thank my maker.