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Poetry

Our opened mouths close,
but the soft boundary
of our bodies remains porous
for a while longer.

An exchange keeps going on
between the darker afternoon light
inside and the brighter
light outside. The day is

loosening its hold. Birds flash
across the windows, unidentified.
We are still not back
from wherever it is we went.

We have grown old together.
Lying here so still,
so softened, our bodies
reach across a silence

that our minds, which keep
the door shut tightly
to our final separation,
cannot cross. Just now,

satisfied, spent, our bodies
seem to say that some day
we will not need
these pleasures any more,

that not being will be
as good as being. How can
I possibly imagine that,
save for this lying here,

the sheets pulled up
to cover our shoulders,
the two of us almost asleep,
our bodies nearly weightless.

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The Image archive is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

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