Liam Rector
September 2004

Our Last Period Together


Lying together in bed we feel soon
We’ll do what’s right and end
The wrong thing we’ve come to be,

I to you, and you to me.
Not all of it, as it turned out,
Was wrong. Years one and two,

For one… And perhaps
In honor of that time we make love
One more time, something we’ve

Mostly stopped wanting to do,
You to me, and I to you.
After you’ve climaxed and I’m

Coming along, you lean back
—No pills, no diaphram, nothing—
And take that sperm right into you.

This much we give over to fate
In case we’re wrong, in case
We shouldn’t be separating, in case

We should stay. And as soon
As your period comes, two weeks later,
I go away.

From Ploughshares.