The Ecstasy
You are not me, and I am never you except for thirty seconds in a year when ecstasy of coming, laughing at the same time or being cruel to know for certain what the other's feeling charge some recognition. Not often when we talk though. Undressing to the daily logs of this petty boss, that compliment, curling our lips at half-announced ambitions. I tell you this during another night of living next to you without having said what was on our minds, our bodies merely rubbing their fishy smells together. The feelings keep piling up. Will I ever find the time to tell you what is inside these trunks? Maybe it's the fault of our language but dreams are innocent and pictorial. Then let our dreams speak for us side by side, leg over leg, an electroencephalographic kiss flashing blue movies from temple to temple, as we lie gagged in sleep. Sleep on while I am talking I am just arranging the curtains over your naked breasts. Love doesn't look too closely... love looks very closely the shock of beauty you gave me the third rail that runs through our hospitality. When will I follow you over the fence to your tracks?
From At the End of the Day: Selected Poems and an Introductory Essay, copyright © 2009 by Phillip Lopate. Used by permission of Marsh Hawk Press.