Learning To Read

WHEN

Studying your expression
as Continental Quilts enveloped
us in being seventeen,
on your roof terrace back when
it was still a large balcony,
your tongue chose its moment,
slipped into my mouth
as if it owned me.

Hands held down to your single bed,
white bread sandwiched people,
naked for the feeling, knowing
you wouldn’t push me, who
yearned, so badly, to be pushed,
but you couldn’t read
me then.

Promised to always
love you – and I have
although the hate crept
in like damp, whitened
the purity of dark, crusted
our superficial feelings.

Sometimes all there is
is in my head,
the smell of you,
being touched in places
that stay deep in my mind.

Although you’re long gone,
I’m a greening shadow,
a thrown in the corner
of who I used to be,
when you stared so intently
learning to read me.