at the beginning I asked you
to let me watch you watching porn   I think
I needed to see you existing
entirely without me   your face lost

in concentration on another’s 
rhythm    to know if we could work   I knew
that you would end up loving me too
much   I thought you needed other idols

months later   I saw him   the actor
from that film we watched   unmissable
petals of the neck tattoo   he seemed
to look at me as though he knew I’d seen

him naked   his body a deep well
of things I would not ask a living soul
to do      I wanted to shout   stranger   I
have seen your skin and you are beautiful  

he was standing at the train station
more vulnerable than I remembered
much smaller too      I imagined him  
heavy with the hope of other men  

taking someone home   the look on his face
when he realised how timid
he was without direction   how
ordinary the unlit curves

of his shoulders were   I imagined him  
stopping mid kiss   pulling back    mumbling  
this just isn’t going how I wanted  
this just isn’t going to work