How can this poet
ever hope
to wrap his words
around you?
Tell me, where
is there a language
precise enough
to contain or explain you
without being burned
to cinders?
For my poems
are only as good
as phantom fingers,
curling like smoke
or the gasp of a ghost
to grasp you.
I ask you:
How could I forget
that first night
you ravished
my disfigured heart?
You were gleaming
brighter by far
than the others
in the darkness of the café.
Yet you seemed so far away
on that evening.
More exotic even
than a dream dreaming
in Madagascar.
But now,
you are as close to me
as your laughter,
which came before my poetry
and I imagine somehow
will linger long after
all poems
are gone.
More at http://about.me/dklawitter.