Greensboro Street (Mature) Poem by James Andrews

At last
The yawning late night conversation ended.
Silence surged and widened over us like sleep.
Your roommates knew we wished them gone
And yet they could not bring themselves to leave.

How did it feel to them?
The way we clutched them near us
And at the same time
Wished them far away.

Hands clasped,
We shivered at the prospect
Of two distances,
Heard faint goodbyes
Then sat like blocks of marble
In the humming silence,
Shaken children filled with questions.

How will this be?
My God, what now?
And all this strange aloneness.

A narrow breasted, dark eyed lover
Spread her hopeless shadow over us.
The morning pressed in through the windows.
I plunged into you.

All night I'd planned
How soft, how gentle I would be,
The way I'd ease myself inside you
Like a melting, precious metal,
Slip through you in the darkness.
I could not.

The wait had been too long,
The low cloud crying over us
Too vast.

My thrust was sudden, sharp, and deep.
Your breath rushed in.
Your body arced.
Your gasping cry soared up,
Fled down the empty street
And echoed in the dreams of one
Just learning how to sleep alone.

I rose up on my hands,
Looked down upon your startled face
As if I stood high on a deck
And felt an old ship
Sinking under me.

Your thighs below me were a lifeboat.

I closed my eyes and jumped.