The Difficulties in Loving

The Difficulties in Loving Tuxedos are a trial — your studs like stubborn armadillos hang in their holes or snag the gay shirt front ruffles like a bird's claw caught in a lace curtain. The bow proclaims itself a tie to something else and knots around your neck. A cummerbund of obligation hooked from behind circles your belly up to your chest. A temperature that's suitable for two — as difficult to manage as the sun, which never shines on east and west at once. One of us is always cooler, while the other's every pore is weeping for relief. The thermostat is steady as a heartbeat, but night-long heat rises and falls like a wave. Now, touching, the light becomes a problem of degree. Too high, and detail lures the eye to outer exploration only. Lost in bodies we forget why we came here. But utter outer darkness leaves us strangers, yearning for the knowledge of a landscape, mute in a country where the eyes speak love. Time I ignore — the door which shuts on your absence, the air which empties itself of your voice, the shadow in the pillow where your head pressed down, the way the temperature will fall before morning, how the sun through the curtains will insist on rising, and someone with a broom will knock on the door. BETTY FLOWERS ...