Naming Passion (Poetry)

I watched you sleep — how long I watched you sleep! —
and sensed your passion burning, fathoms deep,
and heard the breath rise, wistful, in your throat,
releasing sighs, drawn out, and each long note
hung low, a ragged echo of despair,
its melancholy flavouring the air.

Your body twitched, fell open like a book —
I read the signs, that flushed and fevered look
of someone in the throes of secret bliss,
shadowed by guilt’s yawning black abyss —
our comfortable marriage undermined
by words unspoken, feelings undefined.

Lured on by dreams, I felt your errant heart
beating wild and aching to depart,
as moisture pearled the furrows in your brow
you moaned a little. I still see you now —
restless in your infidelity,
adrift in REM sleep’s abstract gallery.

The thought of your departure had me scared —
this threat to the domestic life we shared,
then longing woke within me, urged me slide
beneath you to unleash that rising tide,
and you bore down, possessive flesh aflame,
but called me by some other woman’s name.