At the kitchen sink,
raw hands scrubbed clean
of associations, the untraceable
scent of you overwhelmed me.
Its subtlety was disarming,
trawling nights of salty tongues
and toothpasted underbrush,
of bundled mornings
and the Führer’s glassy eye,
bright blue. Of wan starlight
gleaming on placid lake
and raucous beer-spiked nights
across the water. That light
presaged different things for both of us.

But that night you lingered close
on air, edging the doorjambs wedged
with year-old hesitations,
the driftwould crumbling
the threaden footfalls between
your house and mine.