The Algebra Lesson

What would you not have given to go out into those nights
with the lover at your side, the one whose body

you could never get enough of even though you dreamed
of sex with him, only dreamed it, sex where the body

equaled continent, ocean, sky; sex where the body left itself
to travel continents, oceans, sky—there was no containing

your desire, your need, your unabashed longing to be taken
for who you were while the stars went on with their fiery dying

& the moon—the heavy, rough-faced moon—spun
through its cycles like some strange piece of laundry lost

in space, there would be nonsense like that spoken,
there would be declarations & cries against inhumanity

as weapons were lifted or pleas ignored on the street
imperceptible from the bed where you were becoming an echo

of yourself, you traveled so far, oh, what you would have given
to feel him against you, in you, to be held, to be answered

those nights when jasmine choked itself around the drainpipe
outside your window & the dog lay sleeping in a stain

of moonlight & you knew that being alone was the lesson
forced on you with your first cry, the shock of air

in your lungs, the bloody separation, the entry of your small
destiny into the fleeting algebra of light & dark.

© Copyright, Lynne Knight.
All Rights Reserved.