"Numerous? Two? Three? Is it possible he never heard about the main one? All the rose hedges knew, all the maids knew, in all three manors. The noble reticence of our bedmakers."
-- Vladimir Nabokov, Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle
*
i tried to evoke the last teardrop,
shed in juvenile feathers
which i'd left scattered on the pillow.
you gave me a look like a willow weeping in late june: it was
only the growing pains of arms and legs;
limbs that didn't know what to do yet
where i just wanted to touch
the soft as satin shoulder of a girl
young and sweet as me. i wanted to know
what it was to have this finger rather than that --
i wanted to know what it was
to feel her follicles rather than mine,
each hair, each particle, every pang --
what it felt like to breathe from her lungs
and how her ribs ached in heart break for those lost worlds.
our fingers meshed over shared concepts
and the soft pillow case:
i just wanted to know
what the world was in your world.
(03/12/2017)