Bodies

This is my body. You might recall the way it used to disappear
into your arms, melt into your chest on my more sleepless nights.
Remember? I would unroll myself like a map,
drape over you like a shroud, in hopes that I might forget myself
for long enough to find respite. I never found it easy,
but you seem to have forgotten me already.

You never loved me, no, but I know you liked me—
I have the credit card receipts to prove it. I suppose you liked
the shape of me: the teardrop of my torso, the length of leg.
I remember glimpses of delight, glimmers of the two of us alone
in a dark bar, your calluses burning runs into my stockings,
the taste of wine passed from one mouth to the other.

Your body? Well, I suppose I was in love with it. The surety
of your chest, the solidity of shoulders. It was primitive at best,
a yearning for strength and breadth that I stretched to adoration.
I wish I’d loved you—the way my heart aches now
would have been worth it—but I was a body, and you were a body,
and for all the good it did we may as well have been corpses.