still when i feel cool air coming
in through the window and onto
my bare skin i cannot help but think
about nights in new haven
a september when everything was dying
and we lay in the narrow bed
you, sated, content
me, endlessly awake,
tormented by sirens and your indifference

i spent long hours lying alone in
that inadequate bed
staring at klimt's "the kiss"
which hung glaringly on your wall
and hating the way it mocked me
resenting that woman for receiving love

i think of your new lover and that
perhaps you hold her with that tenderness
in your tiny bed
so fitting in your life where there was
never room for another anywhere
and i think of my new lover
and how he is nothing but tenderness
and how, months later, miles davis's
"all blues" still brings you to mind while
he is telling me how happy i make him

september in connecticut
january in kentucky
everything is different except
the cool air coming in through the window and
onto my bare skin