Grey Sheets

The sheer ferocity with which I
left the bed cracked
your mouth like a whip:

the room was the salt flat
duckboard of a jetty
down the which I pounded,

punching a hole in twilight.
What if I kicked
the grey sheets of your body?

You'd been leaking secretly
since the original slam
of our argument. We even met

by accident. I was fresh out
of the empty penitence
you kept in a bedside box:

I dived through a slice of dusk
into a pool of cool
air, as smart as a lash,

while you lay there punctured:
nothing to grab at
but my stain, formaldehyde.

From Love Poems

Grey Sheets