I am already thinking of rolling around that expanse,
tossing a leg without entangling. The way I am,
though, I see all the possibilities for loss. I see us
pillowed and billowed, supported in exactly the right
hollows by ergonomically designed, pocketed coils,
while beneath it all—the pea under a royal height—
the oppressed, the downsmashed, sleep in despoiled
cardboard boxes, or three on one frayed blanket.
Think of us, spread out, tongues on the rampage,
marking where we’ll kiss. Oh wild God, how can
you permit this excess? How could any of us gauge
the exact distance at which people turn strangers
to each other? In our double bed—called double,
but we have been bumper cars and cliff-hangers
on it for years, our shorter ancestors troubling
us still—I can’t even raise my knee
without poking my dear love in the groin.
We have been close, we have understood each
other the way people in tight houses start growing
into each other—at a molecular level, absorbing
each other’s pheromones. Yelling and slamming doors,
too, or else they are lost inside each other! They would
have grand houses, if they could. They would forge
on like Jet Skis through the foyer and out to the good
sea. They would send a wire to say, “I still
love you.” The sweet old world is longing to be
loose and light. All night long it stares up at the chilled
stars. This is a sticky business, finding the peak
distance for love, knowing our bodies will be nothing,
someday, wanting to hear them make their delicious,
reassuring sounds, bobbing against each other.