After Love
In memory of the poet Maxine Kumin, who died eight days ago, and of St. Valentine’s Day:
After Love
Afterward, the compromise.Bodies resume their boundaries.These legs, for instance, mine.Your arms take you back in.Spoons of our fingers, lipsadmit their ownership.The bedding yawns, a doorblows aimlessly ajarand overhead, a planesingsongs coming down.Nothing is changed, exceptthere was a moment whenthe wolf, the mongering wolfwho stands outside the selflay lightly down, and slept.
Maxine Kumin, “After Love” from Selected Poems, 1960-1990. Copyright © 1970 by Maxine Kumin.