Pondering Prostitutes

The air is suffused with self-righteous liberalism, as I ponder the blackness of her feet, the poem behind each speck of dirt leaning against her pores, your hands roaming down my skirt in a back alley, as if they had read my poems, and I am trying so hard not to feel the pressure of your lips, not to let myself go, because I know that if I come I will cry; then I will be here, beneath you, completely vulnerable, and then you will leave me. I know this the way I know the air's bite on my cheek, the way I know the letters of my poems, the way my tongue tastes your kisses. If I could draw you deep inside me, like a well, I would seal our love with stones, and build a hut above the waters. But love is not like a bird that can be chained, nor like a metaphor, that can be over-used and spun into Chinese folktales about emperors and nightingales. Nor is sex a thing that can be defined, because it occurs in a fourth dimension of the universe, and our dictionaries only cover the three dimensions that have been charted by philosophers. They said that love is lust, divided over time, multiplied by a factor of unwashed dishes - or some such nonsense, I don't remember, really - it's hard to think when your hands are moving between my thighs. The night air bites me; I am filled by your kisses, and I close my eyes.