She sits with one hand poised against her head, the
other turning an old ring to the light
for hours our talk has beaten like rain against the screens
a sense of August and heat-lightening
I get up, go to make tea, come back
we look at each other
then she says (and this is what I live through
over and over)-she says: I do not know
if sex is an illusion
I do not know
who I was when I did those things
or who I said I was
or whether I willed to feel
what I had read about
or who in fact was there with me
or whether I knew, even then
that there was doubt about these things