Shadows on the wall

Do you,
lying there
in the ruined jungle of the bed,
in the tiger stripes of shadow,
in the languid aftermath,
naked as my heart,
believe in any of this?

Sometimes you slip away,
a scent barely remembered
before it has passed -
Are you real?

In the flesh,

in the sounds of us,
the heartbeats between us,
the sweat and tangled sheets
and restless crashing ocean of us,
you seem real.

Then it is sunlight.
The creases remain
and you have fled.

This bedroom,
my cave:
I wait, hermit crab,
red and exposed for you, my shell
to envelop me again.