We fight all week about a night
we almost spent together
years ago. What I did was normal

or totally despicable. What matters
is I’m good to you now. No
you detect that night in certain

silences. But this isn’t then.
Before my father died I was 
another person. Ice on the lilac’s

ticking branches. Ice bends tall grass
flat along the road. A day so cold
our faces burn walking to see

the orange cat who lives with horses
at the edge of town. You want to take him
but we only visit. For now, we say.

We’re here for now. For now this box
can be our coffee table. In empty rooms
we research couches, watch a sunlit wall

on which my shadow head absorbs
your shadow cock. I believe the side of you
that loves me. The other side walks out

in the snow and is gone three hours.
Where do you go? From the house I see
the ground ascending as the sky lowers.

If I press my ear to the window
see our street taper off and the fields
extend their infinite plane no

house interrupts, no trees, no
upright figure but the blue historic
grain tower no one uses

and a pumpjack way out nodding
its orange hammer. After dinner
you prop pillows in the window

to perfect the dark. Then I listen
for your face in your voice.
We’ll sleep better. For your beautiful face

I can go along. I can agree. The world
is young. We’ve never touched
or talked to anyone.