After A Rigorous Clean

Not giving way – hard as it is,
merely conceding conjugal
fluency remains in place,
structural roles that stay
like permanent furnishings
after a rigorous clean

But estranged involuntary
feelings without subtext or
explanations play in the
unconscious, autonomic
exhalations unpinned and
at ease with each other

Products of forty years
proto-intimacy re-enervated
in free debate, evanescent
but apace with scenes as
fresh as the first new
day’s visual memories

What has changed? There’s
no acrimony just strange
distancing, as if waiting for a
reply – if the question was
ever asked, though knowing
why doesn’t stand a chance
© 12 February 2011, I. D. Carswell