Even So

But when we went to parties
I remember you always took my arm
& held it as we went in: I was yours, consummately,

if anyone was looking at me, at us, as we trespassed
into the high-spangled room, & we kissed
the way you were supposed to do, those Christmassy occasions,

as briskly as any two cousins, my heart
outstripping me: I was dumbfounded
at the strength with which I succumbed, the power

of my weakness, the afterbirth
I was left with when you'd gone: the tiny canzonets
I composed to your outlines on the doors

you disappeared through, then slammed:
the black watches I survived, on the roofs & from
my fulvous chimneys: I was

given over so irrevocably
that the rest of it, the aftermath,
the actual plighting of troth, the liminal years,

the tedious connubialness that ensued goes
almost unrecalled. I exonerate you.
I remember your arm.

Copyright © 2004 Susanne Kort All rights reserved
from New Orleans Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission