And what happened to the woman when she was no
longer able to move a room with simple twist
of hair, flick of wrist? What happened when the etchings
in her bronzed forehead scored into furrows?
(Women age despite the best of intentions and
to his knowledge this woman had none.) Had she
become the kind of woman who cloaks her slacking
body in Italian lace and calls it grace?
Did she adopt the sort of patina one gets
with books, antiques, three languages? It didn’t
occur to him to imagine her with children,
or with another man. He couldn’t see her
any other way than undone: lips parted, hair
tangled; slick, dark limbs woven as if they’d never
be extricated from his own.