Member Poem

I meet you in Scarborough, cool and veiled in your black dress.
Your eyes walk straight through me, avoiding the parts that hurt.

We take the street to the docks where all is a shifting curtain
of smoke and mist, gray on gray, ghostly forms on an anthracite sea.

Ice spiders come with the fog.
They spin pale cobwebs over the street lamps,
lambent rainbows dancing on frosted glass.

Later we cover the window with my leather coat.
You light the long wicked candle so the flame burns high.
It’s hottest at the top you say and hold my hand over it,
laughing when I pull away.

Your hair is pale moonlight,
I touch it with a whisper, “Nothing is irrevocable.”
If only that were so say your fingers,
tracing the sores on my back.

We pretend yesterday never happened,
that everyone and everything is just as before.
When I  touch your thigh, you close your eyes.
I wonder if you fear the pain. If you feel it.