If only I…(National Poetry Month)

I had lain awake all night
your head on my chest wishing
for the morning to refuse to break across the sky
leaving us naked and bathed in darkness

I saw the hurt in your eyes
at the sudden sullenness in my gaze
as I bit down on a thousand words
of panic at the back of my throat

I loved you
with your careless hair and your soft grey eyes
and your warm body and your powerful back
the shape of your lips that kissed me
and the submissiveness

If only I’d taken care
to dress with you and walk you down
the flight of stairs to my door
and kissed you once more before sending you away
into the morning sun

You had another life
was it a job? A home? A wife?
you wouldn’t say and I didn’t ask
when we met at the airport bar

I didn’t care then
but I do care now
if only I’d listened to the voice that warned me
somewhere underneath my second
bourbon and seven
when I saw the tie you were wearing and smiled

You were here on business for a month
and you were my lover as well
and we worked til daybreak often
laughing and drinking and lovemaking

Do you want me to come back?
No, I didn’t want you to leave
If only I’d said that
I wouldn’t be left here with only the smell
of your body on my bedclothes