Some Lover (2001)

you know for someone who
professes to be such a romantic
you aren’t much of a lover
she said in one of the angry
exchanges of late when departure
seemed inevitable I like little
gifts that say you’re thinking of me
I like men who are animated
and go at things with gusto
who know when to rip my
bra off and take me Hell you
don’t even talk much when
we’re having sex or eating dinner
I have to fill in those gaps
you don’t seem to want love
much at all so passive so wishy washy
not much a man at all

And I thought how true
looking back over years of this
resenting her lack of passion for me
and wild for the trills and purrs
of secret places I hid from her
being a lover inside love is
the blind spot of eros to gallop
inside the curl of the wave
inside the house of the one
woman you have sworn to love
for the rest of your life well now
we’re trying at least and she is
begging me to take her yearning
it seems for me inside her
and I feel this big wind fresh
with sea salt slapping and washing
over me I want to yell Hell Yes
not here on the page but right at her
on her in her with her etc cetera
but it’s daunting bewildering too
to stand right in the middle of the life
and the wife you love and draw blanks
to feel so silent and passive I hope
therapy will help me take possession
of this love and ride it fiercely inside this life
for now I keep praying and swinging
at every pitch trying to see all the
moist shadows in her trying to learn
the language of love inside love

but I’m like Violet our cat who can’t
stand to be hauled up on the bed
unless she’s in her box when she
is lifted up in that box and set down
she lets me pet and pet and pet her
and she just purrs away will let
me look at her through a hole
in the box just inches from her face
and she stares so openly and pure
but only when there’s a box between us
that’s me gotta have a page between
us filled with words in order
to exult in running so wordlessly in love
some lover indeed