exercise's completion

And love lasts past
thank you, she says, folding this
that you placed in her hands,
and fall, the time of year
someone left on a doorstop to wrinkle,
your shoe impressing its pattern on the face
stands startled in a tumble
your soft heart dimpled by a raindrop
landing hard as a period.

What, starved of home, compares
Now there, now here, to an hour
from both ends. A dry kiss, a
wet kiss, a kiss laid open, a kiss
that could settle into a pillow,
or, buried among papers, could
but hear what wants up.
Of pulling, she says, she’s had to
remind herself, she's done.
The soft is softer.