With benefits (poem)

she says to her lover:
but it's not love, you realise this.
I am not in love with you. I am merely manifesting limerence
and a touch of midlife panic
using life to ward off the night -

oh yes, he says absently, tracing circles on her forearm,
of course. I don't love you either.
but you are very much my -
never mind.
kiss me.

the sky falls away above them.

- Kathy, 4/3/14