Narrow

In a dark, narrow room up four steep series of stairs, I
Stumbled inside, unaware that the bed was located a mere
Fourteen inches from the doorway.

After my expression of startled pain (I had smacked my foot against the bed frame) I was curtly informed that
This was a spacious apartment for this part of Manhattan.

I regrouped quickly, apologized, and asked where I should sit, but it
Was obvious that the bed was the place to be.
And so we fell into it, and
Fell out of our layers of winter clothing,
Me out of my snugly fitted black wool jacket and crisp white blouse and
Voluminous dark green silk skirt over
Thin, black kid boots, then
He reached for the fishnet hosiery that encased my legs,
Snowy legs so unused to the elements, and
Suddenly they joined the heap of clothing building on the cold floor of
That narrow Manhattan apartment,
Along with his long-legged jeans, his slightly itchy sweater, his warm,
Inviting cotton T-shirt underneath that
Still smelled so much of his body that
I was now pressed against.

It was a narrow bed in a narrow room in an old, brick building
With those narrow staircases but it was
Wide enough to hold us as we
Tumbled and rolled together,
Back and forth, around and over again,
With the sounds of the city pulsing far below but
All but unheard by us in this moment.

We would sleep there, in his narrow bed, with just a sheet concealing us,
But as you know, those New York apartments always seem so warm,
Even on the coldest nights, and I
Did not need anything but that thin bedsheet and his warm body up against my skin.
I could feel muscle and soft patches of hair on him, and there is no better feeling,
On a winter's morning, with sun suddenly bursting in through an uncovered kitchen window.
(For the bed was in the kitchen; there were scarcely rooms in this warren.)
I could hear his breath ease in and out and softly ruffle my hair as I felt his chest rise and fall with it, A beat and pulse so calming, I could not help but be at total ease,
Yet I knew, deep inside my heart and my mind, that when
We were both awake and alert and facing that sun that was knocking at the kitchen window that
We would not be so at ease with each other.
Although I felt so much that I knew him at this moment,
His taste, his feel, his pulse, his breath, his sound,
I did not know him, and
He did not know me, and
We would part still as strangers,
Walking off into the biting cold morning to
Drink our coffees as two people who
Had never once
Been as one.