Ah, Love

Though many years have passed, and loves, I swear
I can still smell the soaps this one would use.
I can still see the mole on her left thigh,
black eden lace against her northern skin.

And I recall the thong straps she would wear,
the camisoles and fishnets she would choose,
brown archipelago in her blue eye,
and how she opened doors and let me in.

My lover in her room—a universe
of small particulars: the way she moaned,
the way she hinted which of us was worse,

my lust-shorn shorts beside the book she'd loaned,
and later verbal cruelties, each curse,
and silence after she no longer phoned.


For an Old Flame

Do you recall how I would buy champagne
with subway tokens at the Benson store,
then lick it all up from your northern breast?
   You still wore boots from Bialystok

and I would hold your bag in sun and rain.
Do you recall your mattress on the floor,
how we would suck and fuck and never rest,
   explore Manhattan, and then talk

our way down Clinton street in funny rags?
It was four in the afternoon, my pocket
full of dreams you'd never tread on, love.
   I'd go back home, no longer vagrant,

listen to Cohen, look through plastic bags,
makeshift curtains, out at sunlight, locket
of your hair in my eyes, your smell above
   my grateful lips still warm and fragrant.