You never thought you’d
mourn the loss of one hour,
only a single turn
of the minute hand.

But how mistaken you were,
when your brightest noon
vanished behind the tops
of the desolate pines.

To my first follower*

This will be a love poem,
for all poems are love poems.
Fast love is the way of poets,
and are we not poets, you and I?

So my hater of titles, my quicksilver bird,
my dreamer of stars, my monochrome tulip,
my lover of the ugly, my age-cracked china,
barely sixteen and world-weary,
invisible but trapped in your own shadow,

this is my poem to tell you
that all the words of Petrarch
    and every sonnet of Shakespeare
    could not describe your radiance,
that you're worth more than
    all the gold that slumbers
    in warmth beneath the earth,
that one day you'll lie in a meadow
    with the cool breeze bringing the
    smell of salt to your nose,
    and wonder when the constellations
    got so bright.

You'll not believe a word,
but yet here I am,
writing you a love poem.

I found hope after a cheap meal,
tossed onto our table
like an afterthought.

I did not tell you of the little miracle
hidden away between the folds,
just slipped the scrap of paper
into my pocket,
and savored the taste of
the sweet golden future.

Somewhere, the trees are
heavy with a cottoning of snow,
and the morning sky is not
bleak blue but sleepy grey.

You are sitting at your window with your
book untouched on the unmade bed,
for the drifting flakes are far more
beautiful than any words I
could ever dream.