Forms of Love

On the Town

Tonight I saw the play you liked,
the one you took your husband to,
the one about marriage and passion and poetry,
about lovers with impossible choices.
So I sat there alone in the crowd
thinking of you, thinking of us,
thinking of you at home with your family.
I wondered what you were wearing,
were your boys behaving, was the t v on,
was your husband seeing how beautiful you are.
You had told me but I had forgotten
that in the end the young man died
because he loved the right woman at the wrong time,
because he was not brave enough for the books he read.

Before the play began I ate in a nearby pub,
chili, salad, bread and beer,
you know the kind of meal a man eats
when a man eats alone and I thought
back to yesterday morning when you called
and how you called me darling for the very first time,
and you asked me to have that test
meaning that you had said yes
and I drank a second beer
thinking about your kisses when you visit me
and the way sometimes we hold each other,
silently, breathing in the other's smell,
caressing so gently with our cheeks, our necks,
barely, barely, barely.

Driving home I passed the restaurants and bars
where couples go after seeing plays together,
the happy lights, music in the streets, laughter,
their hips and legs moving to inner rhythms,
the cool midnight air whirling through
the windows of my car and I knew
I have fallen in love. And already it's breaking my heart.