If we did

(and I don’t believe we should) –

but we could,

and I would let you –

I would lie there not thinking:

‘How futile is existence?’

because I am and

that’s what I’m doing

and I’ve started, so I’ll finish.

And, besides, I am a bit besotted

’though I don’t want to be – but,

if we did, here’s how I think things would be:

 

I would lie and wonder where my life was going

as we lay as lovers, underneath the stars,

in sheets of silk,

and you would feign excitement,

thrash around,

and beg for more.

But, I would feel no less repulsive than in all the years before,

and you would love me for a weekend

then state flatly that you’re bored,

and leave me on the pretext

of popping out to buy a bar of Dairy Milk.

 

But,

if we did,

and if you stayed,

and if I had the heavens’ embroidered cloths,

they’d be riddled with the heavens’s most rapacious moths

but would still possess a quality of the divine.

I would spread them out in front of you on the ground,

place them on an underlay and nail them down,

and you would sneer derisively and say you prefer boards

because you’d seen them on an episode of Grand Designs.

 

And if we didn’t – if we left it –

there would be an awful tension,

and I would always wonder:

‘What if we had done?’;

if we didn’t... what then?

And if it were another –and,

you, with your beauty, so young –

might you think about me at all

in the morning, when the sun

awakes you with a kiss,

grins as you notice the bottle of Rohypnol,

explains its name is Barry,

and asks you if you want to go again?