without your makeup
i see you as i know you:
flower in the rain-
swept, drenched by wind and water
unbowed, waiting for the sun.

soon you will be distant after you leave
while here i will remain in silent wait
with the stars, the moon, for you to return
so i may find form and shape in your eyes,
for the shores of my ears kissed by your voice
and I’ll remember more than just my name.

i will move, my lips repeating your name
as inch by inch and feet by feet you leave.
i know you cannot hear nor hold my voice
nor do i know if you care as i wait,
yet i will, with failing heart and poor eyes
for hope, rhyme and reason with you return.

from where you are I know you will return.
but will you remember me, or the name
of those that once found delight in your eyes?
will you forget or abandon them, leave
all thought to an eternity of wait
until it hears nor fears no sound nor voice?

i confess I close my eyes when the voice:
yours, caress my ear, as if i return
to the first night before i learned to wait
for secrets hidden and revealed by name:
of those that have come, gone, and those that leave
endless broken mirror shards in your eyes.

never will I forget your shifting eyes
that held me before you gave me your voice
that made darkness fade. glad i did not leave
for there was only madness to return.
the same night when you gave me your own name,
your gift for what ceased that night, your own wait.

in silence, not knowing, i still will wait
under day or night skies until four eyes
lock and hold, to each other trade a name
that could not be spoken in any voice.
only then will i know when you return
that smiles or hope have no reason to leave

here i will wait until I hear your voice,
eyes sleep and wake with hope as you return,
name in lips that only after death, leave.

between the syllables
of your every word, the sound of your voice
there is enough silence
in the words we speak and those
we never allow to be born from our lips

just as when our fingers
brush by chance or sharing a seat
on a tricycle, there is enough
distance in our nearness
to rival those among the stars

there is more than enough silence and distance
in the coming and goings of things
in the transport of time and chance
this may be my madness,

so let me be mad than to be
distant and silent from you.

eyes will seek for each blade of light
as it peels the darkness that may reveal
as feet will bind contract of contact with this earth
to span a bridge over flood, wasteland, or volcanoes
ears will decipher the language of silence and sound
a hunter’s sense born to trap scent in stillness and wind

because tomorrow is a promise written in salt
each day is Pandora’s box i dare open and endure

for you.

my tongue did not taste nor trace you as a rainbow
because you spawn hurricanes inside my chest

you have always been thus, and so much more
you are of fire and earth, wind and water
the elements and minerals gathered in you
transformed like carbon into diamond
revealing your reflections under light
sought by poets or lovers when comes night

i did not wish to be asleep
lost in a dream like a bus
bound to go places and spaces
far and farther away
until it arrives to waking
where you would be absent

because you are not a dream
i am awake and i wait

while waiting for your goodbye
silence takes it roots and blooms
in every stone, leaf and flower
as if the seeds were planted yesterday
and with each breath waiting
you go far and far away

with only this silence to remain
a graveyard to each of our names

it was morning
the light glowed in your skin
soft and mapped from a night
of love, desire
was a fire in your eyes

coffee never tasted as good
as when pressed between
my lips with your own
your tongue was a teaspoon
stirring my own desire