Dead Languages: The Second Declension with John

We will keep pretending
to be the accusatives, our past
lovers in the criminal role of nominative.
We’ll be blameless.
And we won’t talk, we won’t
turn on the light in your living room.
And we won’t stop
at the coach, or take off our shoes
We will fall clumsily
into your bed, and we will hurt
softly in the dark
as we toss about.

We will not want romance,
and we will not want to grow sweet.
We will have no favorite books
when we’re together.
And we will not kiss one another’s wrists,
or the crooks of arms.
We will be separate
but the same in the after-silence
which you will not break
with pots or spoons and mugs
when you will not make coffee
or any other gesture
that presses my body heat to leave.