Sometimes the erotic is blurrily explicit (not in the way that porn is explicit but in the sense that what is depicted is actual sex) and sometimes it is oblique- bed linen, underwear, towels, clothes, or hairpins on the floor or on a table. Sometimes it is present only implicitly. There is much that is mundane or circumstantial (hotels, streets, lights left on in windows): stuff that has nothing to do with sex or even pleasure but that takes on a tint of the erotic by association and adjacency. These things are a reminder that even in the most passionate affairs or romances- the kind, let’s say, where people have only an occasional weekend together- lovers do not spend all their time in bed. They go for walks, buy things in shops, stroll by the sea, eat dinner in a restaurant. Then they separate, and, in some way, the view from the train window reflects back not just their faces (intermingled, darkly, with the shifting landscape beyond) but memories- intensely sexual- of what has gone on in the previous days and nights. Sometimes such weekends can be part of a prelude to a shared life together. Sometimes try can be reflected on, remembered, and reconjured- longed for- for the remainder of a lifetime that is defined, in every other aspect by their lack.

Sing me a song,
Your voice is like silver

And I don’t think I can do this anymore.

I wanna stay with you but I can’t because I’ve got to go to work
I wanna stay with you but I can’t because I’ve got to go to work