Do Not Ask of Me

Do not ask to place your head next to mine on the pillow.
You’re uninvited.
Between forgiveness and flagrancy, a man stands
to reckon with the Fall,
and how does one get here?

My wild raven hair and supple breasts
are not enough to fall beside.
There must be a story
of my genesis,
of my transposition.

Into your helix of suppositions,
beside glass alchemies,
is white skin you can’t afford,
and even though a century has passed,
mystory is fixed
in your soul’s aberration.

Contemplation is the price of seeing,
and you cannot unsee the surrender
or the prosaic rest of
so many dreamed assumptions
of how I ended up here.

I ask you nothing.
You ask me too much.
What is not here is more important
than what’s here.
I once felt his strokes, his calamities.
How else could he have betrayed me?

But do not leave me.
Purchase the moment in your head,
and seize my hand on the floor
without touching me.
For although the paint is dry,
your eyes are wet with mercy,
and you wish you were in the same place as me.