Pianissimo


There is a third lover. It is to be a ménage à trois.
Death picks the lock on the lovers’ door,

quiet as a cat’s leap from the sill to the ground.
After the doctor’s office, the lovers cannot

believe the news that one of them will go
before the other, but where neither of them

would want to know, if there is a place
that holds just one, and not his lover.

The lovers have set a place for their visitor
at their table, before the television, in their bed.

They learn to cajole this new tenant–
what choice do they have? They try to laugh

at his inappropriate jokes, his morbid humour.
When he is awake, they make love with his hands

running down their backs, his breath in their ears.
But when they catch him asleep, they touch as

quietly as they can, forgetting, for a moment,
that he is lying there between them,

dreaming of freezing deserts and majestic ruins
overrun by weeds and mute with memory.

from Tilting Our Plates To Catch The Light

Back to list of poems.