ars poetica

"Afterward, the compromise.
Bodies resume their boundaries.

These legs, for instance, mine.

Your arms take you back in.
Spoons of our fingers, lips
admit their ownership.
The bedding yawns, a door
blows aimlessly ajar
and overhead, a plane
singsongs coming down.
Nothing is changed, except
there was a moment when
the wolf, the mongering wolf
who stands outside the self
lay lightly down, and slept."

~  Maxine Kumin, “After Love”