After All

After all these years
the plain platonic panties
in subtle pastel shades
are gone: usurped along the linen line
by fine-spun lace and slithery silk
in shameless shades of flame
and darkest night.

After all rejections
of my requests for sexy stockings
and suspender belts,
“so comfortless and cold,”
she shrugged and said:
they are suddenly re-instated
– on hygiene grounds, she says. 

After all the meals
of dietary neglect to pile on pounds
this heedless greed is jettisoned,
to leave long legs lithe and lean
and muscles toned, as brave and bare-faced
off she jogs – her trainer [lover] shares
her jaunts. How kind.

After all the sudden
sodden superfluity of showers,
and unfamiliar perfumes
hitchhiking aromatically on the steam,
her tied-up hair is loose again
agleam with henna and highlights,
and nails in nacre and lashes curled.

After all the dozy days
of slow reluctant slouching off work
I applaud her novel zest and zeal for ‘getting on.’
and laud the [many] extra hours at work
each evening, even conferences.
[residential ones, of course]

After all the parties
where her sometime skittish social skills
have hit a new-found high;
she dimples, now, and dances much,
she sweetly smiles and circulates,
and sometimes disappears.
I don’t think to wonder why.

After all those less-than-peerless nights
I delight, as most men would,
in a recent rise of passion and sensual play
where a twice-nightly need is not nearly enough
and the cute and cosy morning cuddle
continues through the day.

I observe, reluctantly,
this drift of subtle signs
of no known significance
until connected each to each.
Though friends imply much, I resist:
I lack the needed wisdom, wit or will.

And finally, as truth insists,
The freeze-framed penny, trapped in trust,
Floats, frees itself and downward drops -
I catch the blatant meaning after all.
What friends
and neighbours
always knew
I now know

after all.