I wish I could but am grateful I cannot
find the perfect word in my dirt-edged dictionary to describe this feeling
because all is not perfect.

I have lived and relived one hundred moves and counter-moves
not knowing black from white, simply wanting to need
to trap your affections beneath rock or steel as fits my schemes.
One hundred moves for every star in the sky of each wilting night,
and in the midst of a single breath –

a breath like one I swear we’ve shared
on couch or on fencepost in awkward happenstance

– this mind of mine manipulates
  all inadequate allegory, all incomplete comparison
  trying to condense into a single sentiment
  the breadth of that which my chest can rarely contain
and disposes of each in turn.

For words,
the countless words I know by sight and by sound,
would rather not comply.
If only they'd meet the demands of such a meager man,
this torment, this voiceless howl
calling me to blissless inaction
could find solace in this feeling.

They claim and they have said
over again for the misty-eared among us:
Love bears all things.
Yet the beast inside contests:
Bears love all things.
For this is not Love but an Eternal beast
a beast, a Bear, which thrives regardless
of my pain or pleasure
– striking out from the rotting memory of your chiseled touch.