His piss in the toilet,
his siren sweat in the air:
gone, in the light.
In the sink, a glass, his lick
dried on it
somewhere.
In the open bin, on the tissues and plastic,
two knotted condoms, 3am, 4am.
He wouldn’t stay till morning, add a third.
He wouldn’t sleep
beside me.
Naked in my purple bathrobe
I kneel on the vinyl beside the bin,
pick out the condoms, hold
them in my fingers, his come,
no longer white, now cloudy-clear and thin,
his sperm dying.
He was so hot.
From the drawer by the sink
I get the big scissors and, not knowing
what will happen, make a small cut
near the end of one condom. His come rushes
onto my hand, cool, amniotic,
albumen-clingy, thin, slightly
distasteful. I wouldn’t lick it,
now.
The kitchen is chill, silent, scentless.
I raise my skin, inhale:
clean cut grass and musk
tainted with latex.
I can’t smell him, only
an abstraction.
The danger I couldn’t touch
runs over my hand into the bin.
Before I can do anything
I have to wash it off me.