It happened so slowly, I hardly noticed at first. The way you moved me step by step out of my past, my town, my self. Separating me from everything visible, everything that said yes. Of course I tried to get a grip, to hold onto some strand or word. I made up any kind of excuse. But that meant nothing in the end. Outside the streets and stars took quiet walks alone. The mornings after you left, the sea unrolled one wave at a time, like hair falling loose from a clasp. You were all around me then, you and this loneliness like a dream, like a dress, like a sea or a shadow of the sea lifting in waves from the palms of my hands that remember your skin, the nape of your neck, and the curve at the base of your spine. In those days I wore nothing beneath my silk dress. You brushed my hair over my shoulders again and again, watching it separate around my shoulders and breasts. When you kissed me even the room kept watching. You could not stop. I still can’t, no matter what you say. Or said.