Dialogue
by Adrienne Rich

She sits with one hand poised against her head, the
other turning an old ring to the light
for hours our talk has beaten like rain against the screens
a sense of August and heat-lightening
I get up, go to make tea, come back
we look at each other 
then she says (and this is what I live through
over and over)-she says:  I do not know
if sex is an illusion

I do not know 
who I was when I did those things
or who I said I was
or whether I willed to feel
what I had read about
or who in fact was there with me
or whether I knew, even then
that there was doubt about these things