Sanitary

you clutch up
your skirt from the floor
like a fingernail I have trimmed:
it will grow up about
you again,
your skin shall be
defenced again.

the darkness beneath your breasts has afforded me security,
I have slumbered under
their dark girth.

this fabric though
is warmed by your body,
it is not your body.
once I would have asked you
don’t please,
but if you remain bare I know
it will be like
a man
and
wife brushing teeth
in a windowless bathroom,

two standing
naked without speech.