I'm still like a child
with love—

wanting more than my share,
impatient, reckless.

An unruly student,
I have learned nothing

except this:

Love is indefinite and
ill-defined,

but we should study
together
sometime.

You did.
I was parchment;
you wrote with both hands.

I curled at my edges;
the ink is still wet.

I couldn't sing the hymns,
but I could recreate you
in the corners of my eyes
so that you could walk through the door
in a storm of miracles
and we could all gather on the lawn
in our summer sweaters and our sweet perfume
to laugh about how scared we were.

Seeking refuge,
I appeal to your memory
of love.

If you remember blithe abandon,
the thump and swing 
of a heart unhinged,

then light a fire for me in this dark night;

if you know that 
what the eye discerns as reluctance
is often fear

then kindle something brave in me
and fan the flames with patience
until they become
inferno.

Wait, please—
don't go.
There's something I
need you to know;

when I fall,
it's headlong
and this poem,
these poems,
are all wrong.

days brisk with drumbeats,
evenings spilled from riverbanks—
drifts of violet, ripe moons.

Before the rain falls,
the leaves turn their pale bellies 
skyward, playfully.
She is staring at the sky.
He thinks *I should kiss her now.