So what? And?

James Bowden

And so what if I love you in spite of myself
of her, of my present confines
And so what if all I want is to curl up next to you, inside of you, your head on my chest, my cheek in the small
of your hand, my heart under your foot and yours in my chest
And wake up next to you, playfully slinging clothes on and off, a shallow disguise for what we are and
crave to be
And so what if I am only dreaming and we’ve hardly talked, much less seen each other in months
And so what if you are a part of my past, and I yours, though we both know the former is a lie, and never
collide again we shall
For I know that you are what I want, and not what I have, and next time, I won’t let you slip by
I was never good in broad daylight but in the shadows I do love.

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These days, I say, why not broad daylight?, and indeed, that has been much of what I’ve been working on doing. I think it comes through well in a lot of the later poems.