LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING

LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING

If you think by your death you have left me alone,  

to pine, to regret, to watch cable tv, you're wrong.

At bedtime I wear a new black lace gown,

and arrange myself to advantage

on sheets finer than any we shared.

I've left the back door open. 

I believe I thrum.  I hear 

his step and then we begin.

He attends to that place

below my ears, knows how 

to rub and nip. There is time for my breasts, 

time for him to stoke me, each inch

until my supple back arches, reaches, pleads,

demands his weight. We twist, turn, lift, 

sate, shout, pound pillows, laugh.

Then something, a noise? 

I wake, on my side of our quiet bed,

my short white hair mussed, our gray cat 

stretched along my pale, restless thigh.