Reunion

Just as he changes himself, in the end eternity changes him. —Mallarmé On the phonograph, the voice of a woman already dead for three decades, singing of a man who could make her do anything. On the table, two fragile glasses of black wine, a bottle wrapped in its towel. It is that room, the one we took in every city, it is as I remember: the bed, a block of moonlight and pillows. My fingernails, pecks of light on your thighs. The stink of the fire escape. The wet butts of cigarettes you crushed one after another. How I watched the morning come as you slept, more my son than a man ten years older. How my breasts feel, years later, the tongues swishing in my dress, some yours, some left by other men. Since then, I have always wakened first, I have learned to leave a bed without being seen and have stood at the washbasins, wiping oil and salt from my skin, staring at the cupped water in my two hands. I have kept everything you whispered to me then. I can remember it now as I see you again, how much tenderness we could wedge between a stairwell and a police lock, or as it was, as it still is, in the voice of a woman singing of a man who could make her do anything.