Kiss after kiss in the shelter of your car,
We made the myth of us; or perhaps I thought
Too much about the possibility.
My want and hesitation and misbehavior,
And the tired, charming, slanted eyes
And the cheerful curl of your lip—
I reached for your heart, to tell it our story,
To find our passion strike like an echo in the night.

But I made a dumbshow of my affections,
Made little admissions—
Thought we were just
One another wishing to be one,
But only ever a pair determined by their hours
Mumbling blindly the summery meadows.
And maybe the wind beat down the flowers,
Or left us overblown in our infancy.

We could both have been
The whitest liars among the field of hot stars
That are always kept at a safe distance
And still would never have to gleam;
I would have kept you as long as I could,
A firefly in a glass jar, but the sweet fire
Would burn out before we ever spoke
The truth.

Maybe it was too nice to meet you, or maybe
You were too nice to me;
Maybe I should never have opened my heart’s chamber-door
And let you wander the vernissage of melancholy self-portraits
That were only worth a moment’s glance,
That are to me as hammer to glass when I conjure them
To squint at them, or peer, or look,
And can no longer look at them.

But you did not mind.
With bare effort, your arrows sank into my back
And my head into your chest.
You held me close to you, the way I should have been held,
The way a child might hold a dying parent,
The way a father holds his only son
As if to say "I love you"
Before he turns out the bedroom light
And walks away
To leave you to dream.