RINGS I HAVE WORN

 

There’s a ring of your skin
in the bathtub, rinsed-away love.
I know the particles that belong to you, gather
them for my burgeoning collection.
In the porcelain I wash soapy leg-ropes,
the places where other men have put their mouths.
Irrelevant where I am touched,
you have marked me
with ghost-kisses,
caustic Comet scrub-burn words.
Unmistakable, one of your hairs
stray in my bed
but it is time to launder
and here too particles
will be erased,
but never this headache of wanting you.