Remember ninth grade biology lab?

 I watched you slowly swoon.
 
 I lifted you to your feet.
 You were as unsteady as a swan
 that's turned her ankle
 in dance class. 
 You gazed at me as if I had lifted you
 from a muddy well.

 

 I held your throbbing wrist
 as you dissected the frog.
 

 I thought I would play teacher
 the rest of our lives.
 I tutored you on how
 to throw a ball overhand.
 How to fix a door's latch.

 I taught you to kiss.

 

 But after twenty years of marriage
 nothing I do is right. 

 We fence all day, like amateurs
 with tipped swords.
 Maybe we don't draw blood

 

 but we wound.