a woman who stands
between day and night
with sunset hair,
and eyes the color of leaves
that will never know autumn
sees me standing in the slowly
dimming light of life,
words in the shape of a man.

your voice
like that of an angel
calling me to prophecy or worse, prayer
uses words that redefine me
like the lyrics of a memorable song
i can't even hum when you ask.
your slight accent
is faded by years
of wearing it in a foreign tongue,
like the colors of your favorite clothes
worn too often,
as i am all too often
worn too thin
by the heavy accent of your body in my thoughts.

you see me standing alone
between night and day,
an unabridged dictionary
of hope and despair,
being methodically abridged
by the great condenser of time
and his imitators,
as i am slowly reduced
to a man in the shape of words
like loved and remembered,
and later still
missed and forgotten.