What We Did In That Place Which Can Never Be A Home Poem by RIC BASTASA

after love
we soften a bit

i do not smoke
and you do not read

you stand up
to dress yourself

i stay for a while....

soon the room will
be so silent
i can hear the wind
slipping by the window

i will listen
i will give more time
for silence to
whisper
its sound
to me

in a while,

i will stand up
and start to cover
my nudity

it is a metaphor
for an icing on the cake
to conceal
an emptiness
a bitterness
of what i have not
done when
i was young then

when i was so alive
and candid

then i talk to myself:

this is not my house
i cannot call it a home
and so
i must leave to search
who i am
again