A Time Ago

‘Yes,’ you told him,
‘I was in love
with your brother’
Him: ‘That does not matter!’

You both seduced
your rounded youth,
but, eyes closed,
he was still unsure
which one you saw:

Yet you shared a short,
unmarried, life,
with your half-English,
and his own, too precise.

A rattle of ‘roaches,
in the tight shower space,
was the moving-in present,
left by prior tenants,

and two doors down,
a neighbour, laughing again,
when calling out:
‘Never marry a woman!’

As your afternoons,
of barefoot heat,
sex, gulped air, sipped,
and tongue-sweep,

under groped fascination,
his brother
was there, deep, deep,
in your imagination.