The One That Got Away

You were too lovely to let go, sleek
hair behind your quivering neck.
And how you wriggled in bed,
O lips, ridge of vertebrae
along your swimmer’s back.
We did each other in October rain–
flopping on the slimy rocks,
my jacket under you.
And when the rain picked
up, my hands cupped your flesh
beneath my hips–you tightened
round the whole of me,
scaling down the slope,
arched, gaped, then tail-
first in the lake.
This is no fish story.
This is a love story,
a story of open hands
this far apart, no
thisfar. No, farther.

"The One that Got Away" Appeared in Poetry East, 1995, and was reprinted in Honky Tonk Rising(UK), 1998.