"FORGET LOVE"

This week we didn’t meet. I hate that. The  bed is rumpled. I go out onto the lawn. The  stars are hid in heavy haze.  The only moon my lit room. I put my hand into the beam that falls upon a garden chair. You’ve touched that hand, and it’s touched you. I’ve little to complain of. In fact, I’m not complaining. I find it on these hot nights, hard to fall asleep. If you were here! You almost were. Then something  came up. Back  to bed. I’m reading about Byron and his last love, la Guiccioli. I identify with her, afraid of losing him. When you’re down, I get scared. What if boredom should set in? On your side, not on mine. I put my hand on your side of the bed. I see you there as I  saw you sleep  there last week. We’re not like Byron and his Teresa, we don’t play games. (Byron, by the way, was great! So, in her way, was she.) At least, the games we  play are sex games, not the kind that come from ennui. God damn this hot  and restless night. I was asleep and then a dream that  you were angry with me woke me. I can’t quite shake it off. I know it isn’t true. You’re not. It’s hot: I thought we’d  meet: we can’t: I felt let down. I get the downs sometimes too. And how. I trust you. You’re as straight as anyone I’ve ever known. I hate it when you’re  blue. You plunge so deep into it. I feel then I’m  in the dark and can’t quite touch you. Perhaps I needn’t, shouldn’t try. I respect your inner life. You have Irish moods (and eyes). I do too. I— what is it that I want to say? To say this isn’t  a complaint. It’s how I feel on a hot night in August, 1972, missing you.

No, no, she wasn’t lost, she was even going to make a list of things she could do! She sat with a blank page and wrote: eat — look at fruit in the market — see people’s faces — feel love — feel hate — have something not known and feel an unbearable suffering — wait impatiently for the beloved — sea — go into the sea — buy a new swimsuit — make coffee — look at objects — listen to music — holding hands — irritation — be right — not be right and give in to someone who is — be forgiven for the vanity of living — be a woman — do myself credit — laugh at the absurdity of my condition — have no choice — have a choice — fall asleep — but of bodily love I shall not speak. After the list she still didn’t know who she was, but she knew a great many things she could do.