Your skin circles my breast as our breath flows
downhill. There remains naught but residue
from our coupling, bright browns and sterling greys,
raised squiggles of passion and bent depressions
of moisture. I have considered death before,
looked into its void, smelled its sour fear,
yet nothing but your thighs locked and loaded
can drag me beneath its spell. Because sex
with you is absence. It is loss, submission,
regression, withdrawal from the conscious and
immersion in the starred splendors of forked
nights, burnt portals and thrice-prong’d cries.

Alone I stand in a bed black as the sun,
your absence a shimmering wave of denial.