Waiting is women's work.
I don't imagine that you're sitting there,
picturing the wrenching touch of loss
or its converse, reddening at thought
of how sweat sings, and tears.
There's quietness in agony, a nothing
to be done, a darkening.
I think my face impassive, after
the fracture of separation, sudden
even though the end foresaw the start.
Rings do their work, and break.
My veil enraptures me. I'm still
a little slow to read (I tend towards)
your psalmic innuendo as a pledge,
—the time this seems to take—
our temperature failing to incite
release, or condemnation. I sit
tight, as loyal, as subject, to your grace;
the game of our unwinding
suffers me this corner of a place.