In memory of the poet Maxine Kumin, who died eight days ago, and of St. Valentine's Day:

After Love

Afterward, the compromise.

Bodies resume their boundaries.

 

These legs, for instance, mine.

Your arms take you back in.

 

Spoons of our fingers, lips

admit their ownership.

 

The bedding yawns, a door

blows aimlessly ajar

 

and overhead, a plane

singsongs coming down.

 

Nothing is changed, except

there was a moment when

 

the wolf, the mongering wolf

who stands outside the self

 

lay lightly down, and slept.

Maxine Kumin, “After Love” from Selected Poems, 1960-1990. Copyright © 1970 by Maxine Kumin.