all I am is impulse and longing

In front of me, you are sleeping. I sleep also.
Probably you are right that I project
the ambiguities of my own desires.
I feel I only know you at the edges.
Sometimes in the night I jump up panting,
see my young gray head in the mirror,
and fall back, as humans do, from the cold glass.
I don't have the time to invest in what
I purport to desire. But when you open
your eyes shyly and push me on the shoulder,
all I am is impulse and longing
pulled forward by the rope of your arm,
I, flesh-to-flesh, sating myself
on blurred odors of the soft black earth.

[Henri Cole, '6', from Pierce the Skin: Selected Poems]