I lie still upon her bed
as the fevered tension begins to fade
smoking the day's last cigarette
Quiet, not a sound, not a word said
Barely beyond the throbbing in my head
till I heard heave the sighs of an appetite fed.
Tonight I have been Napoleon, Casablanca, Sade
and ... a schoolboy hardly past his seventh grade.
But for all my guises portrayed
the last I have not yet played
for it is of a far subtler, darker shade;
I reached under for the modesty I shed
put it on as I kissed her temple still moist in sweat
and then like a thief

--- fled.

                                                v : ) n c e