Though There'd Been All of This

Though there had been a silent push and pull
too indirect to know except by hints
in how it’s left your memory so full
of how he smelled and looked: warm scents and tints –

fresh-showered flesh – and its faint musk, by night –
his cool pearl color heating up like sin –
the soft unspeakability of light
in his dark eyes – complicity of skin –

too delicate, exquisite to be borne –
too smooth to tolerate, except to crave –
all this ought to, at last, have been to warn
you that you were too human to be brave –

and yet, though there’d been all of this – this glove
of man you thought had fit – you don’t know love.

.