The night chamber

A white room fitted out
with all the implements
of your torture — first,
you had to be convincing.

It all began some time ago,
on a rooftop patio. Your
brown face blended well
with the roundness of you.
Plump lips on a white smile
delighted a tangle of limbs
to music you arranged. Love
was a thick dark night
in stilettos — finally,
doing me in.

A swift and soundless
wind on a tangoed-turn
carved an aspect in you
a scalpel might be envious
of. You gleamed in your
sudden newness. And
I dug my stilettos in — 
missing the vein.

I once watched a fat slug
carve tracks through 
bedded-down centuries — 
grace in an unlikely form.
But your newness crushed
your greater mass upon
my shivered wing. Love
was a meat hook — finally,
doing me in.

(with love to all suffering — men and women and children — present and of a time ago, domestic violence)