Edwina Trentham

He Corrects Her Past

She was not true to him all those years

before they met, so each time he reads

her journals, he marks the names of friends

she’s mentioned, then rips the page corners.

At night, in the mansion he bought her

to thank her for coming back, the cold

air clouds with their breath, and he lies hard

to the wall until she’s on the far

edge of dreams, then eases over, breathes

deep in her ear’s whorled shell, his hollows

spooning her bones, did you ever? New name

each night, and even though, every time,

she sighs back, never, he knows it’s because

she has learned how to lie in her sleep.