No Complaints

By my scientific reckoning, Emily, it's been more than five hundred times and in each act I burned so bright. I like to think you did as well. In memory the images of our couplings burn...

And yet never once, not that it matters... You wouldn't, you didn't, you couldn't... always you make me stop before... No complaints, Emily. It's this resistance that charges my memories, this refusal that makes me ache...

I've done my best to understand, I've tried to find the reason you put aside what I would call fulfillment. But I know the shape of my desires: don't worry son... For me, not for you.

Emily, the way you are remains a wonder to me, something alien and apart — but when I lie with you I pass into a wonderful space, a garden of endless approaches and turnings back,

A labyrinth...