Downfall

His downfall everyone said was women, he told me

he couldn’t live, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t

sweat without their touch and I saw it younger,

and I saw it young when I was trying to figure out

the pattern of being a man, his downfall wasn’t

the drink which he took in prodigious amounts

as I did younger, and older, now, trying to figure

out a pattern to be a man alone,

remembering the place where flesh creases and

soft thighs, the whispers, the moans, woman, women 

they said his downfall was always women and I see it, 

now, in the pattern in how I've constructed myself, 

as him,

as a man.