She is shadows and soft sighs lit by night;
merriment flitting on her unmarred face.
And as she twirls and sings about in place,
impossibly, I come to know her sight.
Hidden by shapes that shift to her delight
my mind begins to write it all apace,
so in the dark we may keep our embrace
a yearning that we rarely dare incite.
To seek, to find, to grasp and to arrest
those smoky eyes that laugh and look away.

Unsure, my dreams begin to feel half-dressed,
harried by the fleeting losses of youth
as though the lies were not enough to sway
the failure of imagination’s truth.