Sanctuary

I turned away from his side of the bed, clenching my pillow between my legs.

A long time later he comes to bed and wakes me. I stare at him over satin sheets in anger.

Morning came, I wrap my arm around his sleeping body, curled up pharaoh-like in the sheets.

We come together hours later on the brick porch for cigarettes, me with my camels and he with his reds.

       "I'm sorry for being angry," I start. "I wanted to make love, but you never came."

Smoke curls around his upper lip as he exhales into his answer.

              "I can't read your mind.  Why didn't you just tell me?"

I pause.

              "I wanted to be classy."

                                              *              *              *              *               *            

Later on that day he says thanks when he means I'm no help at all.

Afternoon from my bed.

When I look through the window

it seems as if

the fan's wind blows straight through the trees

and afternoon sunlight orchestrates

a shadow play

behind closed eyelids.

It's as if I am caught in a private exchange

light and wind

and I, in soft sheets

wrapped in sinewy cloths of imagination.

The silent things we do not witness 

as we aren't around to look

fills the basin larger than anything

we could add.