could we name the little rooms of touch and so forth gone glimmering now?

Suppose gravel. Or cinder. Some surface cut 

in palm, in knee. Suppose when love goes 

we could point to scars (how we rode!) 

but nothing shows. 

 

Winter hangs on the horizon. On my birthday 

he tells me you will never know 

what you want. Could we name the little rooms 

of touch and so forth 

 

gone glimmering now? 

The bike wreck, the broken bottle: skin 

stitched clean and edge to edge again, 

marks from twenty years ago. 

 

But of this? A mouth, a wound? 

Or that's too easy--words 

like gauze or iodine? I don't know, 

except once I wanted him. 

 

[Cullen Bailey Burns 'As One Might Say, Then', from Slip: Poems]