I strained (daily) to hold
my eyes off strangers & their bodies,
to not love                     

the thought of love
in apartments I'd never revisit, where we'd hold
our conspiring bodies

taut in wordless dark: somebody's
bare aches beneath me all I'd need to know of love:
no time to learn what resentments we could hold.   

Instead, I held each sawtoothed want inside my body. And I called it love.