musée

You're sure you're not in love with me
she says with her eyes, nonchalantly,
a woman accustomed to asking.
they glint green just around the rim
some verdant ancestor refusing to die.

she tilts her head, furrows her brow, repeats
"You're sure you won't come with me?"
words swollen with entendre, you’re convinced
her hair backlit and sparkling,
"virgin" she's joked, never once dyed.

she kisses your cheek in departure,
wants to get back to the way our parents generation did it.
daunting, 
the cliff of her jaw
the curve of her shoulder
all not nearly near enough;
haunting,
too many of your days,
inexorable from your nights,
this ghost who hasn't even died.

rule breaker, you think,
no,
rewriter,
carving them as she goes in gold,
a lightning strike, a mountain in smoke,
consummate impossibility.

where were you before this
lost
or worse, complacent

what were you before this
a dissident
an infidel

now
a man with a living exodus -
perhaps no better off, no closer to salvation,
but at least renewed in belief.
a heretic
commanded testily back to the faith.