Carolyn Smart
Afterwards
My lover in his blond jacket
slips his wide, dry fingers into my clothes.
So: this is what it feels like.
My heart is dry as an onion skin.
I turn my back to him in the morning
knowing already the patch
his quiet fingers will make on my skin,
the cutting of the onion, the sheen on the knife.
If words could be as quiet as fingers!
So: it happens this way. Just when I think
I’ll answer only to the words of the body,
the questioning of fingers,
I grow lonely for comfort, for phrases.
Turning to him, afterwards, I say I love him.
Anyway, I say it. I say the words
with my eyes on his soft, blond clothes.
Page(s) 186
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