Resort to Calm

No protest, just the door’s soft sigh,
but the house shocked me with its
closed blinds and stale breath.
I touched your hand, you smiled
and said, Let’s go outside and sit
behind the hedge in sheltered privacy.
You rolled your stockings down,
thrust out your legs, I shed my shirt,
we bathed in pools of sunshine.
The afternoon beamed on us, forsythia
lit its yellow fire, urgent odors
smelled of earth, spring’s warm river
flowed through us, over us, around us,
and we talked as neighbors met by accident
who swap news in neighbors’ fashion.