Even Then Maybe

Not spent. those bloodshot friendships those
soul-marriages sealed and torn
those smiles of pain
I told her a mouthful
I shut my mouth against him
Throat thick with tears
how words sound when you swallow
—and under the roofof the mouth long stroke
reaching from the tongue’s root

No, I was not living with her at the time
At the time I was not living
with him, at the time we were living together
I was living with neither of them
—was dwelling you could say
But as for living at that time
we were all living together with many others
for whom living was precisely the question

Haven’t seen evenings like that since
vesuvian emerald to brass dissolving
—a sentence you’d waited for
taken back half-spoken—
Luxury even then maybe
evenings like those