After Love

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, lips
admit their ownership.
 
The bedding yawns, a door
blows aimlessly ajar
 
and overhead, a plane
singsongs coming down.
 
Nothing is changed, except
there was a moment when
 
the wolf, the mongering wolf
who stands outside the self
 
lay lightly down, and slept.

Maxine Kumin, “After Love” from Selected Poems, 1960-1990. Copyright © 1970 by Maxine Kumin.

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