SELF PORTRAIT AS AMATEUR
I have thought myself in love at times, sickly and stupid
with night terrors no gasp of ozone can relieve.
I have held someone in the guise of love, skirted
their outline in the communal dark.
I have felt bodies ease away or near
because that is communication.
I have fallen from love, gently disentranced
or in a blanketing relief, spun into abrupt air.
And I have felt the quiet love kind, with insinuated
future togetherness and corralling of wishes.
I have feigned reciprocity and I have wished
it feigned. Often, it has been easier without love
made in error, with its lurch of gin or loneliness
or train journey contemplations of what kisses,
when layered on like mille-feuille might mean.
I have often been mistaken.
