What You've Done Since

Have you swept the floor of my black hairs
and changed the sheets that reek of me
of what we did - and have you checked
the handle of your frying pan for prints.

Have you erased each text I sent, so full
of love and have you primed the neighbours
not to say a woman turned up late a few nights,
knocked and was let in.

Is my impression still in the blown anaglypta in your hall
the note I left when I sneaked out at dawn - torn off
and thrown away, or better, burnt.
My loveheart, my three kisses, my ‘I had to go’.

What about the memory of my skin, my arms
my mouth the way we touched and talked,
the way we ate and drank, made love - the way
that I surrendered, stripped and took you in.

Has that been put away as well. Thrown out.
And I can’t bring myself to say a thing
about the one who might have found this evidence:
my laughter slipped beneath the mattress,

my love blocking draughts under
the door. My fingerprints
impressed on every scar,
my poems in your history.