The anticipation is often the best of it.
The dream drowsy cigarettes
on the fire escape over Spanish Harlem.
The insomniatic hour at the pool hall
sipping thin lukewarm beer.

The motes of palaverous conversation
where your heads flit and fall, forming
the soluble walls of a nave, the ocean
of her body still a somnolent tide
mysteriously keening in the moonless dark.