Adrienne Rich — Even Then Maybe

Not spent. those bloodshot friendships those soul-marriages sealed and torn those smiles of pain I told her a mouthful I shut my mouth against him Throat thick with tears how words sound when you swallow —and under the roofof the mouth long stroke reaching from the tongue’s root No, I was not living with her at the time At the time I was not living with him, at the time we were living together I was living with neither of them —was dwelling you could say But as for living at that time we were all living together with many others for whom living was precisely the question Haven’t seen evenings like that since vesuvian emerald to brass dissolving —a sentence you’d waited for taken back half-spoken— Luxury even then maybe evenings like those