SOME THINGS I HAD, NEVER KNEW, NEVER HAD

for J M-G

I gave him the best ten years I'd ever have
in me. Thought he'd be gone in five,
but he kept at it like a metronome.
The headboard knocking on the guest room wall
told no lie. Every night he'd slither in
beside me. A butterknife of cold skin
and a papery skeleton that still hungered.
He never stopped with that, right up
to the last like a lovesick teen.
Mostly I'd lie patient as a corpse. I never
told him I loved him. I never loved him
more than money. I lived a decade
just to feel it. So, if you think my story's crass,
imagine yourself, ten year worth of nights
counting the colours in the ceiling pattern
on your back, imagining things you never knew
you'd had. Tell me, could you imagine that?