Alibi

We sat together in the country
where men like us can sit together
like this. It was night, your blond hair full
of moonlight. You took
one socked foot out of a loafer
and held it in your hand.
How easy, then, to have said, I love you.
We drank from the same bottle.
How easy to have meant it too.

Later, in the obvious light
of the train you are almost too late for, I can see again
why we settled
for what was difficult.

 
Credo

As Caravaggio did it,
prying the lips of the wound until the taut
skin peeled

off the canvas,
doubting and believing
in the same stroke.