Sometimes it’s funny, this after-hour when
whatever hasn’t happened between us
hasn’t happened again, and I pretend
to be another kind of woman, who spends
the night on the couch in a rage,
on strike for affection—
How ridiculous.
I’m always in this bed,
if not having you, then forgiving you
exquisitely, consoling myself
with a lame joke: I’m a shrinking
being, tinier and tinier I grow,
there I go!
The last woman on earth
who even bothered about sex,
and now I’m nothing but a speck.
What a shame for all those lusty men;
their world without me is barren.
larger: you’re a hulking, man-
shaped continent, a cool green
giant (I can hardly reach your leafy
parts), or a statuesque
philosopher-king, whose sleep soars
above mathematics, his loftiest argument.