The lure of a woman’s body shining silver smooth
can draw him through a needle’s eye.
The table in the other room
is set with grace and art.
Standing by the open fire and watching her,
midsentence, he forgets the topic.

Smoke and whiskey slip across his tongue,
and he cannot suppress a distant memory–
cicada shells clinging ghostlike to the bark of elms.
She moves close to him and he believes
the comfort of a woman’s body might
protect him from abandoning his own skin.

Later, he’ll arrange his bones between
clean sheets and dream of being just one man.
The secret of a woman’s body
holds him as tightly as the darkness
that comes when a curtain is drawn,
half light fades, and all that is ceases.