POEM WITH REFRAIN


How that night you sought me, slipped from skirt
and blouse, and stole into my bed softly,
and lay touching naked breasts to my bare back,
where I lay wakeful, and feigning sleep;

and how your small kisses caressed, your fingers
drifted over me, and over and over
your murmuring made the repetitious bliss
of wavelets rippling home to mother shore:

"Don't go. Don't leave. I love you. I'm sorry.
I understand now. I promise you I'll change.
Only let me love you, and everything will be
as it was when we were first in love..."

And how--do you remember?--I was quiet,
and didn't turn to return your kisses.
No, I was staring at the wall, and thinking,
"Where...where have I heard this shit before?"

And how, though I was stone there, you persisted
until I sensed within your murmur, then knew
precisely where I'd heard all that before:
my own voice (urgent, honeyed) murmuring

time and again to this woman or that,
who lay--as millennia of women have--
pitiless, chilled, alone, in the dark, thinking,
"My god, no, not the same shit as before!”​