First love
Your purple, frigid gaze, frogmouth, leaves
me naked before. What could you have to fear
from me? The night precedes your art, not mine.
I write these lines, watching you, to thieve
your sight; but the gift’s not mine, it’s yours, the seer
who flees in silent flight, and speaks not a line
of prophecy. For the night has come – the hour
of watchful silence, when the word forsakes its power.
And to the dusk between our lips, I muttered
my visions inchoate in swollen verse.
A rigid cold arose and long I waited –
your purple dress alive against the gutter –
for your reply. Your stillness was a curse,
and you just stared, across the world, elated
at the sight of some geometry unseen.
Your hand arrested my cheek, and all between.
