the first thing i felt as my toes dip
was your quiet gaze
and that velvet smile
but i shudder
as the cold creeps up
and when i feel your hands around my waist
every kiss on my body bursts
into fireflies that glow against my skin
and against your flesh
sparkling in your eyes
and that velvet smile.

what does it feel like to be held
not by another body
not by a set of limbs, a chest, a chin
but
by another soul

what does it feel like
to see truth in another pair of eyes
instead of hidden intentions
instead of absence

what does it feel like
to hear a familiar heartbeat
resounding next to your own
reaching through skin
through bone
two rhythms
indistinguishable

what does it feel like
to write poems about
a love that exists

Always amazed in eerie incantation,
our love captured in time,
frozen on still image;
black and white, translucent,
I fill in for lacking colors.

Embracing on town boulevard,
birds fluttering on autumn sky
place where we met in afternoon-lit shops,
the old cafe were we danced
brimming with wanderlust souls.

Pretentious foliage with a warming hug,
dancing orange-blue flowers on cream dress,
dangling jewelry: rings, golden bracelets,
red lip imprint left on dreaming face,
intertwined lives, encompassing forever.

Our memories play like old movies,
your clean perfume, dropping rivulets,
past left behind, dirt on shadows,
anything I would do to go back
where gentle whispers summon smiles.

I’m back, a ghost town years later
from a love that never was,
desperately searching through places,
the ones we explored together,
I mutter your name to utter strangers-

Voice braking, quivering frown,
frustration, on descent,
a numbness with no light,
silence, for no one has seen you since,
this old photograph, the only witness left.

I. The Boy With The Cuckoo Clock Heart

Born with a frozen heart,
abandoned in
Edinburgh.

One kind physician
laid her hands upon him,
in a bit of medicinal salvation,
by placing a cuckoo clock
inside his chest.

Now an orphan,
among peculiar friends:
tear-filled flasks,
eggs containing memories,
and a man with a musical spine.

There's but one catch
for this boy:
his heart is fragile,
he must never, ever
fall in love.

Existence is undoubted.
But without this one emotion,
can he really live?

Love is a bitter token.


II. The Girl With Glass Feet

"It was a humid night,
later to become a hated night."

Upon an island sound,
feet first, she is slowing turning
into glass.

By sheer happenstance,
she meets a shy boy
who lives there
with an extreme fear
of being touched.

As she slowly disappears,
she untethers herself
from self-pity,
by teaching the boy the value
of interaction.

Inchmeal, he begins to reach out
and feels everything
she has lost to the night.

Love is a bitter token.


III. The Snow Child

"November was here."

A married couple,
in Alaskan remote,
suffering from one great sadness:
no child of their own
and unable to talk of it.

He's buried by
the weight of the outer ice,
she's crumbling
from inner despair.

And so on a rare
friendly day trek,
they built a child out of snow,
outfitted with mittens and scarf.

A day later it is gone,
remembered only in absentia,
yet there appears
a beautifully arrayed
creature of winter,
a little, lissome girl in the woods,
hunting with the red fox.

In wishing to understand
these encounters,
the couple come to love the child
as their very own daughter.

Yet will she ever accept them
as they do her?

Or see them
merely as snowdrops?

Figurines frosted over by
the harsh landscape
they each wander?

Love is a bitter token.

Who gave thee, O Beauty!
The keys of this breast,
Too credulous lover
Of blest and unblest?
Say when in lapsed ages
Thee knew I of old;
Or what was the service
For which I was sold?
When first my eyes saw thee,
I found me thy thrall,
By magical drawings,
Sweet tyrant of all!
I drank at thy fountain
False waters of thirst;
Thou intimate stranger,
Thou latest and first!
Thy dangerous glances
Make women of men;
New-born we are melting
Into nature again.
Lavish, lavish promiser,
Nigh persuading gods to err,
Guest of million painted forms
Which in turn thy glory warms,
The frailest leaf, the mossy bark,
The acorn's cup, the raindrop's arc,
The swinging spider's silver line,
The ruby of the drop of wine,
The shining pebble of the pond,
Thou inscribest with a bond
In thy momentary play
Would bankrupt Nature to repay.

Ah! what avails it
To hide or to shun
Whom the Infinite One
Hath granted his throne?
The heaven high over
Is the deep's lover,
The sun and sea
Informed by thee,
Before me run,
And draw me on,
Yet fly me still,
As Fate refuses
To me the heart Fate for me chooses,
Is it that my opulent soul
Was mingled from the generous whole,
Sea valleys and the deep of skies
Furnished several supplies,
And the sands whereof I'm made
Draw me to them self-betrayed?
I turn the proud portfolios
Which hold the grand designs
Of Salvator, of Guercino,
And Piranesi's lines.
I hear the lofty Pæans
Of the masters of the shell,
Who heard the starry music,
And recount the numbers well:
Olympian bards who sung
Divine Ideas below,
Which always find us young,
And always keep us so.
Oft in streets or humblest places
I detect far wandered graces,
Which from Eden wide astray
In lowly homes have lost their way.

Thee gliding through the sea of form,
Like the lightning through the storm,
Somewhat not to be possessed,
Somewhat not to be caressed,
No feet so fleet could ever find,
No perfect form could ever bind.
Thou eternal fugitive
Hovering over all that live,
Quick and skilful to inspire
Sweet extravagant desire,
Starry space and lily bell
Filling with thy roseate smell,
Wilt not give the lips to taste
Of the nectar which thou hast.

All that's good and great with thee
Stands in deep conspiracy.
Thou hast bribed the dark and lonely
To report thy features only,
And the cold and purple morning
Itself with thoughts of thee adorning,
The leafy dell, the city mart,
Equal trophies of thine art,
E'en the flowing azure air
Thou hast touched for my despair,
And if I languish into dreams,
Again I meet the ardent beams.
Queen of things! I dare not die
In Being's deeps past ear and eye,
Lest there I find the same deceiver,
And be the sport of Fate forever.
Dread power, but dear! if God thou be,
Unmake me quite, or give thyself to me.