mio amore è forte
Mia's amore è ... sconosciuto
as I weave my way through the crowd
sometimes moving to the side,
sometimes bending at the waste to avoid arms-
as if playing playing limbo,
sometimes jumping over low limbs
(much to the disagreement pf my ankle and knee).
trying to catch my brother
who, being much smaller than me,
fits easily through the crowd
and disappears under the cookie table to her right.
She's standing with the black haired girl from the pew in front of us,
both smiling and laughing at my approach.
and when I finally find him and take him by the hand
I stop and talk to them
to her.
My Sunday was hollow in the absence of her presence.
I see her an hour each week
down around those little tables
where I often sit next to her
as I have since day one-
but this being the second Sunday of march, that didn't happen.
so I feed off the smile and the short fleeting words
and every time I pass her,
by that table
the coat closet
the nursery
the kitchen
the espresso machine-
we fit a word or two in.
At one point I join the line to take dishes to the kitchen,
hidden in the crowd
I hear her sister and her talking, about me
about me smiling at her, talking to her-
or I assume it's me, they give no name.
I smile and the person in front of me moves
but I was already turned and she doesn't notice me eavesdropping,
so I wave and continue on.
in the 20 minutes after that
she stays at the youth trip donation table
and we don't talk, since I have no money.
So I wander around instead
talking to some of her siblings or the occasional pastor.
I wonder if she sees the look in my eyes
if she can sense that when my life changes
I plan to continue coming here for one reason-
her.
I want to somehow stand up and ask her on a date.
but it is futile, what am I?
I'm poor no matter how you slice it
whether i'm in a family of four or a family of six,
and I'm nothing worth looking at either.
she is rich despite having 25 siblings,
rich enough to live in a huge house on the Hill,
to deliver snow from the mountains
and feed over 20 people.
and she is beautiful, indescribably so-
gentle and quiet, until she speaks
but her words don't define her near as much as her actions
which again assure me that she is gentle and shy
that the loudness is a facade
and a well practiced one.
she blushes when I'm near
and her words are always forced out through a smile
but I don't know whether that's just how she gets with guys
I've never seen her elsewhere.
I would tell myself to ask her out,
but she deserves better than me.

I will break down that wall in three months, if I don't before
with her
or another