What We Do Not Say

I do not know what led to this, or when it began.
Of course I have changed since we first unpacked
our book bags on Divinity Avenue, cracking

our history texts open to ancient Rome in Widener
Library.  Fifteen years later you sit on a wicker
chair across the porch, arms crossing your chest.  The dog

watches us from his bed.  Two hawks skirmish
in midflight, dropping to the meadow
nearby.  When we look away through the tangle

of trees, I look to the past, to those days living
on Hampshire Street.  I would like to speak
to you of that memory.  Your sun bleached bangs

tumbled over your smooth forehead, the sun
swelling across your bare shoulders, there
on the wrinkled bed, absorbing the weight

of your leg on mine.  The early surge of tenderness
would not have lasted long anyway, years
of experience taught me that truth as we fell

into this rhythm of silence.  All summer
the house has baked.  Now we say so little,
shutting the hard talk out.

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