after it

I remember the soft tangle of the careworn
sheets around your ankles
and the movement of my fingertips across
the plane of your back
slow like reading

how your jaw hooks into a subtle underbite when I'm
turningyouon
and you call me
woman

the ease of being with you,
our hands brushing almost unconsciously
hands that announce
we are each others,
he is mine and i am his but also
he is he and i am i and
we are for it all, and together

also the shift in feeling
of not being with you--
the long stretches pressing the phone to my cheek,
so long that it leaves a slight imprint of your voice
on my skin,

the little notes you left in my books

the postcards that either fill completely or
remain blank, except for a single tiny thought or idea--
like the rise of mountains and how it's really
more a sadthing than a triumphantthing, the earth crashing like that,
don'tyouagree?
or to tell you about the row of birds on the telephone wire like beads of
dew strung together on a thin thread,
huddled together

our conversations pulsing beneath
their little feet.