EROS

I had drawn my chair to the hotel window, to watch the rain.

I was in a kind of dream, or trance –

in love, and yet

I wanted nothing.

It seemed unnecessary to touch you, to see you again.

I wanted only this:

the room, the hair, the sound of the rain falling,

hour after hour, in the warmth of the spring night.

I needed nothing more; I was utterly sated.

My heart had become very small; it took very little to fill it.

I watched the rain falling in heavy sheets over the darkened city –

You were not concerned. I could let you

live as you needed to live.

At dawn the rain abated. I Did the things

one does in daylight, I acquitted myself,

but I moved like a sleepwalker.

It was enough and it no longer involved you.

A few days in a strange city.

A conversation, the touch of a hand.

And afterward, I took off my wedding ring.

That was what I wanted: to be naked.