I can perfectly recall
The slight green tint
To your storm blue eyes
There were these perfect
Sun enriched creases
That spread like rays
From the corners of them
Watching me with intensity
Rising heat even in the cold
Closing my own I can still inhale
How you smelled
Sweat and horses
Old leather
Sometimes all your scents
Combined with mine
And I would catch my breath
Gasp with surprise
That no one else noticed
You would touch my cheek softly
Despite
The telling work worn creases
on the backs of your hands
flecked with soft white
Barbed wire scars
Nails regrown after hammer altercations
Stubborn ball-hitches
Renegade gates
Turned to suede
Lifting my face to yours
The velvet caress
Of your high desert lips
I can feel your stubbled chin still
Brush roughly across my shoulder
Shockingly coarse
Leaving the skin tender
Whiskerburnt
You would drive
With soo much weighing
On your mind
In your heart
And in my youth fullness
I would watch you
Worship you
Write love songs and poems
That I folded into origami horses
Saddles
braided into reins
All this time
I remember you
Except..................
I cannot recall
More than the whisper
Of falling clothing
Our own muted sounds
And the dust
set alight
In those summer scorched buildings
Did you say something
Did I
My voice file for you is incomplete
And soo far away from that moment
Here I'm still writing
Poems
Only
The creases are mine now
Folded still
No longer horses
But instead
Into the shapes of our mountains

(JL)