Of Late

 By year’s end, some couples used book lights,
or even night-lights, so as not to make love
in total dark. What some told, others took in
with the hungry curiosity of three year olds
ripping open gifts. Story after story

jutted up like fossil finds, tinted rose
by sun and smoke and dust, the airspace
silenced, through which innocence strained
like a grammar-school string orchestra.

With time, we’ll learn again not to curse
on camera; in time, we’ll identify one another.
For now, “one” often makes “another” jump—
appearing, say, at the cellar door, in one hand
something sharp and gleaming from the tool kit