The Doubt

When a man is dead, or a woman, / We call the corpse not he / Or she but it. Does it / Not mean that we believe / That only the souls have sex and that / Sex is invisible? / Then the question is, who / Is the man, who the girl, / All sex-accessories being no / Indication. Is she / A male who with frail hands / Clasps me to her breast, while / The silence in her sickroom, turning / Eloquent, accuses / Me of ingratitude? / And, is he female who / After love, smoothes out the bed sheets with / Finicky hands and plucks / From pillows strands of hair? / ... How well I can see him / After a murder, conscientiously / Tidy up the scene, wash / The bloodstains under the / Faucet, bury the knife... / And, what am I in sex who shuttles / Obsessively from his / Stabs to recovery / In her small silent room?