I want you to know how she smelled
In the pale blue morning light,
in the ephemeral world that shall exist forever
between the morning sheets of every bed of all life's lovers.
I want you to know that there is nothing to which her scent compares;
no flower,
no breeze,
no woman.

I want you to feel how that made me feel.
That it gave me such hope,
Like a discovery that paradise is real,
Like a sudden revisitation of the most beautiful childhood dream.

I want you to know that her body is Eden
and I am Adam
and I am Serpent.

I want you to know
that wherever I go
I hear the footsteps of God,
and shudder.

I inhaled her
pressed my self into her neck and chest.
Her body in its summer
giving rise to this sweetest scent
that is hers and hers alone
and mine, in this moment, to know.

Rejoice.

I wish we could keep lying here,
she says,
unknowingly an echo of the ghosts
of the many naked souls
who have been haunting these mornings,
these days, these weeks, these months.

I wish we could too,
I say,
and I do not know
if I am lying.