So Late in the Evening

As she goes home this evening

Her head and body still full of him

What can she say

To the one who waits impatient

Waits in a room rehearsing

A list of stale arguments

Adding up and subtracting

Like a sickly accountant

A registry of hurts?

What reasons can be given

What excuses can be made

So late in the evening,

So very late in the evening

As she wanders home

Her head and body singing

Singing and knowing

No reasons are needed?

For she wears her joy

As a kind of armour,

And all her excuses are vanishing

And all her guilt is melting

And she is careless finally

And is finally loving,

And she is wrapped in the scent of the one

From whom she is walking,

As evidence for the one

To whom she is going

For a final time

So late in the evening.