“You guys stayed up talking so late.
How come you talk so much?
Are you going to talk again tonight?”
My knee nudges
your knee; you tell your boy we’re sorry,
we’ll talk quieter.
He thinks a moment—that’s okay
with him—and goes. You stare
at me like a schoolgirl, and we count
the possibilities:
1. Like kids in Wordsworth, he meant
it: talking. 2. He’s
speaking euphemistically
to (a) prevent his blushing
at knowing what he wants to know,
(b) pretend our thrashing
about comes as a trick of the chaste
night air so he need not
know, or (c) act unembarrassed
at our blushing that
we know he knows. Such ceremony.
Knowledge is quickening,
delivering grief or joy
talking or fucking.