One Flesh by Elizabeth Jennings
...ey wait' - there is no interest in physical love -all men elsewhere-- former lovers 'some new event: the book he holds unread,' -they are waiting but might not be doing so her eyes fixed on the shadows overhead. -he wasn't reading. pretendence. :it's not just lack of interest that is keeping them separate but they are waiting for something. ---till death do they part--- -not exciting event that they are waiting for. -idea of death. -nothing else critical would happen except death. -they are preoccupied with private thoughts 'tossed up like flotsam from a former passion' -flotsam: wreckage/shipwrack : their past sexual relatinoship. prove that passion use to be there. 'how cool they lie. they hardly ever touch' -passion is now gone. burnt out. -is another catholic imagery. -medieval time: sex for babies. no passion. 'or if they do it it's like a confession of having little feeling- or too much.' -passion burned out. -confession: it's like you've done something wrong : statement of wrong doing. 'chastity faces them, a destination' -reason for their separation 'for which their whole lives were a preparation' -not having sexual intercourse. chasity faces her parents. -in extreme old age. . 'strangely apart, yet strangely close together. ' -closeness: catholic vows. -not spiritual...