{new & exercise}

to the present and future ones

each time you have him
even just for dinner, a drink
something quick at noon
he returns to me sweeter

/ he comes back, the shiny ends
of his fingers finding mine,
finding me, coddles this body
its eggs, its comfort

I know days you do not touch him
must seem oceans, horizonless --
do not make his cock your anchor.
I haven't. even at your center

he is a wrong compass, your
magnetic north a gorgeous
moment; but a moment.

do not think this a competition
or that I say this to hurt you;
when he comes home from you,
mouth of cigarette, hands of wine,

he travels three rooms to kiss me
before taking off his coat.

***

exercise: take a poem written directly to someone (for example, Anne Sexton's "For My Lover, Returning to His Wife" http://plagiarist.com/poetry/582/ that spawned this one) or with multiple characters and write a new poem in the voice of one of the characters from the poem.

***

I don't like the title. suggestions?

I may also make it longer. but then it'll probably be in sections, like everything I write these days. sigh.