PATRICIA SMITH
Ouch. The first hurt is when I see you
standing in the lobby of my hotel, pacing,
hands shoved deep in your pockets. All
nervous blinks and questions. I realize then
that it is already too late, that common sense
is no friend of ours, and I consider saying
“I have fallen in love with you” and
touching the flat of my hand against your
grizzled cheek, just to see whether you would
run, or weep. The wine, of course, is desperate
ritual, a last chance to laugh it off and return,
shaky and solemn, to the clutches of home.
We sip and giggle, our eyes jumping,
and I hungry-stare at your left hand resting
on the table, wondering if it has memorized me.
Ouch. But I am in your arms, pressed against
the door of my room, drinking in all this wrong,
biting and kissing, clutching, but this is not home,
this is not home, this is breath, this is downbeat,
this, oh my God, forgive me, this is my latest
religion. I fold myself under you, pass through
your skin, introduce my anxious tongues
to the swell of your belly, fill my fists
with soft steel-colored curls. And our kisses
are dirge rhythm then jazz quick, strutting
like bullies on the bass line of us.
My whole body is hurt, then hallelujah,
hurt, then hallelujah again,
regretting then reveling in this deception.
Somewhere it says thou shall not commit this.
The last thing I want is this stranger inside me.
The next thing I want is this stranger inside me.
The only thing I want is this stranger inside me.
The only thing I want is this stranger.
There are too many of us in this one room. Your wife
stands cool and detached by the window, my husband
sits on the side of the bed with his head in his hands.
We weep and fuck, so sweet slowly, so flustered and
needing, forgetting to eat or drink, ignoring the screams
from our respective corners. That nagging question,
“What are we doing?” is answered a million and one
times because it is what we keep doing, ouch, it is what
we can’t stop doing, shattering our lives and dancing
barefoot on the shards of glass. When I say I love you
it is the first poem I ever wrote, and when you answer
I love you too, it is the sound that poem makes in the open air.
Ouch. At the sight of us, your wife moans regret.
My husband stops his tears long enough to ask me
how I could do this. I twist my body into goodbye,
squeeze my eyes shut against the sight of you.
Your plane home guns its engines
just outside the window.