We circle each other in the kitchen,
old man, middle-aged woman.
If the neighbours spy us through the window,
framed in yellow light, they’d think
we were slow waltzing.
The lightbulb flickers. Careful,
you say, more than once,
and I know your fear is not the catching
in the blades of springy hair –
so different from the smooth locks I’ve cut,
or from the mussel’s beard around the base
of your cock – nor of them biting
into pectoral skin, or red-brown nipple.
I’ve got your heart, I say, and I can feel it,
thumping, thumping, under my left hand
as I shield your chest-hair from the whirring.
I can feel it, doing what the heart does.