Just Bodies, Only Light

Every morning I expect San Francisco rain,

but umbrellas aren’t what they used to be.

The sun comes instead, lights up the hills,

the houses – the pinks, the blues, the yellows.

And I begin to think everything

I’ve ever heard is a lie.

That truth like this sharp light peering

through my kitchen window,

will never last,

was never here at all.

Even love,

because it felt me in that bed,

with curtains pulled,

sheets awry,

it twisted that womanness into me,

with an arm outstretched waiting for

my head to rest.

But that was just you,

I see now a boy trying

to be a man,

with tattooed stories I will

never know,

just another body in a bed.

You zipped up,

made promises to me

with cold metal in between

your fingers, as I

wondered if I could keep love

in only a room.

And in that darkness,

but outside

the sun being Sunday and all,

I agreed,

convinced myself too

soon, that your body

was not just a body,

that this light

had been here

all along.