Same difference

“Is there anything of which one can say, Look! This is something new?”

—Ecclesiastes 1:10

Photograph: Giuseppe Bartoli

“What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun”
but it is now half past midnight
and yesterday is not today
as we bathe in the bedside lamp light,
bare as the satin sheets of night.
Our bodies, born again out of each big O.

I can’t tell if it’s the separation anxiety
that makes every single kiss, every caress
feels so familiar. You’re like my second skin
despite the distance that usually separates us
and turns each similarity into something new.
Same difference each time we meet: you,
tasting of something borrowed, while I am
that something blue, looking right back at you!