What I want from you has little

to do with sex, though it, like wine

and bread, rests on the table between us:

the curse that escapes your craned

neck; the way you turn away in bed, 

your tongue an animal; and all

the exchanges of power and light.

Nothing of the lies we tell with silence

or the creaking we make as bent pines.

I want the open air of quiet: assured, 

azure, birdless—and knowledge 

earned from attention.

I’m not your mother, mistress, concubine, 

or slave. I want to dine with men 

whose kindness hasn’t been beaten out, or 

who’ve called it back like the One Lost Thing.

Whose humiliations beget the softening 

of eyes. I want to be surprised.

All my life, I’ve studied you—a matter

of survival. I want not to know you 

so well. Here at this table is tenderness,

broken so we might share it.