Mostly just not yours

too perfect she says
you say all the right things
there must be something wrong

as usual
silence answers first
her words dangling between us

are you crazy
is that it

I laugh
perhaps confirming
perhaps not

she shifts nervously
naked mother of two
with a secret lover

giving kisses to a man
she does not know
but wants to discover

almost from somewhere else
I hear myself saying
well I will never marry you or another

that
silence
again

up on an elbow and also nude
smiling from lips to eyes
I continue

they tell you love has a path
from teenage lust and skyburst hearts
to dotted lines and a shared house

and I tried twice
and I failed twice
and I learned

it is not for me

the silence
this time
is not as loud




she exhales and stares upward
pleased
by my short speech

my compression of romantic failures
into a singular non-answer
is a mad man dancing on the head of a pin

truth
as spectacle
never fails with new lovers