How can you understand
surviving another year in marriage ----
even not so much in love,
lust smoothed to whispers in the dark
that stroke on the neck,
pulse of an aria,
chaste the way the love has deepened,
so deep it can be made in public,
church, or those emergencies
in which all we had is lost.

Some day it will be enough
simply to live
need nothing, desire,
aspire to nothing
except for a single dawn,
endless dawn.
An apology becomes a compliment,
knees that kneeled too much,
thanked too much __
crumbles pride into powder
too small
to be of value.