what is different about this
is my redoubled unwillingness to be carried away, and yours.
and yet, as edward estlin seashell cummings sings
in my ear like a mockingbird, a heartbeat of waves:
'i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands-'
and the severity of your very true words
cuts through the pith and touches the white.
lets honey come seeping from my flesh,
slowly, once, and now faster.

somewhere in the interlocking letters of the night
beneath the blue light of sodium vapor lamps on ramps of snow
i woke from a nightmare:
a bridesmaid's white flowers in my hair and in a white lace dress,
the dancers at the wedding part as i pass,
and my old lover says to me that i missed our song:
number thirteen, out of twenty-six he counted
while i was outside smoking
and dancing, with a dark-haired man,
a madrigal, a tango, more gracious with the slant of my head
and rolling, fanning gestures of my hands.
while that boy waited inside with his face wet with perspiration, tears,
condensed drops rolling from his slowly-warming bottled beer.
i saw him there at the end of my mother's finger, at the edge of the crowd,
an oval of despair.
i am someone's bad dream.

from this,
i startle under your draped arm and turn to you in the dark
to meet you nose to nose.
and i say
'i was having such a bad dream.'
it was a hard talk earlier, for me.
but now i feel the willingness of your voice and the sweet warm smell of you.
your body, pushing back into mine, as my arm goes around your waist
and my nose into the hollow
between your shoulder-blades.
then we roll back under the sheet and covers,
and forming a double question-mark,
curl back into sleep again.

this is that sweet moment,
knowing that you are beside me,
and though you need not be told just now,
much beloved.