He stared at her through campfire;
its flames sounding like a babbling creek,
and through the smoke he knew
that if he had been God, he would have thought
how perfectly he created the world.

And when we two parted
I wandered your apartment
placing my life
into a shopping bag,
but under your bed
I hid a photograph of us.

I hope that some day you find it,
that you say that I was EVERYTHING
that you needed,
but...
I'll settle for you remembering how in love we were,
and realizing that somewhere
that person whom you loved still lives
somewhere in me.

My heart has always been skeptical,
and sometimes I think that it's waiting.
waiting to go back to being hollow,
like that old church in Vienna,
after mass on a rainy day in October.

I stood outside in the garden:
extracted my rib,
ground it down on that stone,
shaping it into a knife
so that I could dig a small hole
to bury my treasonous heart.

You emerged into that dark wood,
and we found a path together
through moonlit streets and storms
until we came upon a tavern-
your laughter sloshing like
warm bourbon falling into a glass.

I'd watch you when you lost your self,
and I could see the fire burning in you
warming me, and in those lost moments
I didn't care at all that I might get burnt.

She had lips
that whispered
the possibility
of forever,
and eyes
that looked
like home.

She didn't really have a beginning,
or an end, now that I think about it;
she was moonlight on a dark ocean.

Her eyes were a night sky
and I could hear the wolves howl
when she laughed.

She was just the type of woman
that your grandmother warned of,
and she pulled me close like the tide.

I drank you deeply at dusk,
and that,
is where I'll wait-
drunk on your magic
grasping at your ether.

Love is the sound
of your door closing
as I leave for the last time.

All too often we mourn
the fact that the fire's burned out,
but I WON'T think of the embers!
I'll remember the blaze burning brightly-
-those nights that you dressed in moonlight
those morning that you were there,
soft and gentle, still dreaming.