Bonnement m'agree

Hads, Fee, Eys, Sol

One woman serves my ego: that
masculine lack of attention
masquerading as adulthood.
She uses words like “man,” uses
“manly” lots, even when I’m not.
“Unconditional love,” she said
last night. It sounded like “Don’t leave.”

Another one speaks to my soul,
her traveling-need desires what's “next,”
all the things she’s seen and done, the
spices she has risked, she hangs her
walls with them, wants always more and
hot and more. Everything but me.
The word she uses most is “friend.”

Too, there’s one whose own need touches
mine, frail and strong, running, always—
her eyes. Sometimes they rest and then
I see and say “I know.” I think
I love her like a mystery,
a thrown improbability
probing last-known hiding places.

But one—she, my ever ever;
each poem I write--her hand's on mine.
We dance along a floor of glass,
never out of sync, as long as
music plays. Play tunes out all my
imperfections. But when it stops,
then she aways. She never stays.

Ending then, these are the women
in my life, none of them a wife,
each one of them more dear than I
can say and each one with their points
both hollow and sublime—none mine.
All mine. And in their turns I see
they’re right and cannot disagree.