Lovers said my body was beautiful

but I couldn’t understand.

The clever madness of my parents

rendered such beauty invisible

before I learned to see it.

Aging past middle, toward old

I watch the waning of what I never saw,

but loved to sense implied

in a woman’s desire.

Sometimes that was enough.

Now love has rendered

enough insufficient,

and home implies

vastly more

than desire.

Even while I fade

like autumn.