the affair

With hushed voices on the phone
with hushed fingers on the keyboard
they steal time
to remember how the other tastes
and breathes.
Pretending this is less
than it is.
She sighs his names as quiet as she can
as another moves,
claiming as quietly he can.


I wish this was fair, he said.
I wish you were here she snapped back.
I miss you more than-
And this is so-
And why-
the phrases they avoid
so not to spoil what
little they could steal.
Her bare legs crossed up on the wall she tells him
the pieces of her day that don’t matter.
He knows that what they’re doing right now
is the part that does.



Her partner tells her
that he loves her hair
and she enjoys  the unoriginality and safety of the words.
Her lover creates for her
a new name- a new identity
and calls her nymph and siren- calls her greek and calls her latin.
Calls all of her his own
and everything around her pales to grey
because how did his eyes get so blue?
Love is too strange and too too too
too multi-layered and too
too too
different in a different person.
“I wish this was fair.”


He loves her every hour of every day.
He wants to shower her with roses
wants to worship her
and exalt her
and protect her and give her
everything she could ever want
for as long as they both shall live.
But instead he calls her to let her know
that he has quit smoking this week
and that he bought himself new shoes.


The room they hide in
was blue and small
but it could have been
as big as anything
they would have filled it.
After so much waiting
they don’t rush.
Hands drag slowly
touches lingers
and please don’t let this
Don’t let this end too soon
because I need you here with me.
Can’t do it all on the phone.
And when they’re moving together
she swears it’s never been like this.
He swears he’s never felt more real.
And they bite back the dreaded “L” word
because what can it do for them
besides make this too-

Sometimes while he’s off in his own city
he thinks he sees her-
buying coffee, feeding birds, writing or reading a book.
Messy hair and large wild eyes.
He wants to reach out
but she’s at home
with another
making his dinner and kissing him on the cheek.
She’ll call in two hours and thirty four minutes.
He goes back to his apartment
where someone has made his dinner
and is ready to kiss him on his cheek.
He sends her away, and waits.
-janine may