Nocturnal Song
if I could have accepted that this morning
we would be ended and done not later
than tonight, I never would have gotten up
exposed myself to the morning
I would have stayed asleep, alive
under the covers, reserved my arm numb
around your upper body, lips on your back,
eyes stopped up. I would have found a way to contain
the dawn, to keep the bright fingers of light
from creeping across the bedclothes to trace the shadows
of your face, to stroke your eyelids into opening, to keep
this new thought that we must be over from
blossoming into the angry flower
you keep close to your heart
this denial of me.