The luggage carried by refugees from wealthy
families was laid beside the bed we occupied, to
do our dance. I saw it, in the middle of the action—
black leather, names embossed in gold— tried
not to notice that it was sentient. It was telling you,
for the duration of our tryst, all the ways this was
a betrayal, to sleep with someone of inferior caste
status, with horrible consequences. When a severed
head popped briefly out of a suitcase, it reminded
you, red-tongued, the debt you owed could never
be paid back, the grisliness you visited upon your
clan could never be rectified. All the severed head
looked to me like was roses with thorny stems, tied
in a knot— you saw the real deal. Amidst the grotesquerie,
what we appeared to be making— love— was somewhere
in the mix, threading our limbs together, without, this
time, ostentation, & with the wistful recognition that
repetition was unlikely. Where was the love in you, Mary?
I was to learn, later, that there are no flesh portfolios.
The love from which you can live off interest is about
everything accrued which binds two souls together,
everything invested mutually. For all the horrible visions
we had as our flesh joined, I still go walking (as the song
goes) after midnight, looking for that strain in you I
saw so briefly— human, tender, emotional, devoted.
Amidst so much grotesquerie, at the moment of my
deepest penetration into all of you, body & soul, I noticed
the breaking dawn was tolerant, the luggage gone.
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