Proof
Take last night—wasn’t much to it—
two earthlings floating our dreams
in one bed. Though it left us
plenty of proof. Didn’t we shift
and touch under the dark’s one cover,
shuffle our sleeps together
in the gusts of each other’s breath,
then slip again deep
into singular drifts? I remember
your forehead against my neck, your arm
on my chest…. You kept
my knee a while between your thighs,
and I roused a little to the wind-
in-the-trees of your inhalations. No
more than this—all the proof
we’d need, to know, throughout
the rest of our lives, we had passed
love’s test. And why
doesn’t once convince us? As the night
lifted off to its dawn death,
it left us a certain scent—evidence
it had mixed our humors, stirred us
a oneness. Then the light scoured us
separate, our senses’
confluence lost. We showered
and dressed in our doubts—it suggests
we’d learned next to nothing.
[“Proof” first appeared in Split Rock Review.]