These are Please God Days

It is unbearable how people keep falling in love

with people far away. Not the lovers in different

states with their loins at convenient distances

so the only times are good times half way between here

and Cincinnati - somewhere in Virginia, skiing,

wine tasting - or not skiing and not wine tasting

but making love in hotels with seven-pillowed beds.

I am thinking of lovers who have flown through windows

to know one another better. For whom the fire is not

cleansing or warm, but cracks like the links of a metal

chain around their ankles, wrists, throats.

There is no perfect faith, she says, don't blame me.

When she says sacrifice is something she understands,

she means there is no God of courage. He tells her he is crumbling.

He keeps his resentment in his front pocket, fingering it

like a buckeye. Sometimes he holds it in the side of his cheek -

a damp apology. They sledge stakes in the yard and in the bed

and throw themselves against imaginary fences, falling

back into each other like wounded dogs trying to escape

the front yard. These are please God days when love is not enough

in the flood. She is languorous in the porcelain tub

when he comes home smelling sad. He takes her wet hand

out of the cloudy water and gently brushes his lips against her

knuckles. He stays there fore a long time, beside the tub

holding her hand. She steps out and stands in front of him.

A puddle forms beneath her naked body. He shudders, has to steady himself.

He can think of nothing better to say so he tells her he loves her.

Think of bad days as long distances, she says. You are a layer

of skin I can't explain. They drive past cornfields and graves

wanting to take back the ugly things they said. They carry

everything with them, words heavy as wood axes, waiting

for a clearing, for some moment they can comprehend, like this one.