Opus

6th of July

It was the 6th of July when we last
kissed. I haven't seen you since. I have
heard that you have aged and have
a mistress now. I have aged too, my limbs
are heavier and most days I am too
tired to talk, I keep fading around the edges.
Stories line my body, the beggar-boys on
the train and the time I got lost
in Sudder Street, or the lady on the bus
who frowned because too much
of my cleavage showed. I told her she should
grab an eyeful while she could, it was the day
after 377 got repealed, I was returning
from a pride march and had the rainbow
on my cheek, and felt very brave. I called
her 'sister' nonetheless and offered her
my seat, and forgave her even though she
called me a slut as soon as I was gone.
I wonder if you ever
think of me at all now, if the shape of
my name still lingers on your lips the
way you said it with such
tenderness, not at all like
my first love at thirteen who could
never pronounce it right. I tried to imagine
how Brutus might have called his Portia
if he ever returned from the war,
I imagined their night of lovemaking
they said each other's names so gently
and it was everything Shakespearian
and beautiful. But we are not
classical tragedies. My love,
we are mundane and on this side of
your yellow bedroom curtains
the world will never know about
us. We are only a lonely Saturday conversation
and lovers in the city of love is the
only thing we could hope to be.

It's October and it hasn't rained
for a week, the city is lighting up
for the Pujos and I don't know who
to be. I have a picture of us from the time
we went to the mountains, my head on
your shoulder and your eyes
scrunched up in a laugh. I wish
I remembered what we were
laughing about. My loverboy is on a
hunger strike, I haven't texted him
yet and I am too ashamed of my
late-capitalist privilege to face him now.
I keep falling in and out of love with
the people I meet, the names of streets,
my favourite professor who is pushing forty.
He can't bear the weight of his melancholy
and cries when he listens to Beethoven.
He quotes Kundera for us, and is kind to me
sitting on the corner bench and too
tired to talk. The last woman I fell in love with
told me once that a poem is like a moment
frozen in time. I wonder which moment
this one is supposed to be.