from Geoff Page’s “Codicil”

Adulterers

After that first urgent 
kissing at the door 
and all the prearrangements 
whispered down the phone 
and all that splendid 
disarray of clothes,
the interplay of skins and liquids,
that short delirium of smells
and all such pure
antiphonal delights
the cigarettes are lit at last …
and sprawled there in a 
twist of sweat
a conversation comes to life:
obsessions of the absent husband,
shortfalls of the absent wife.