In youth I followed bitterness
and poverty down the
95 corridor and finally found
perfect gasoline rainbows and
humid sudden summer storms.
I found your wide, wonderful smile
and freckles and love and
so, so much more.
I know you fell long ago
and have built up around
your landing spot a lifetime
of interconnected infrastructure
and much of it has lost the
sentimental spark it had
when, so many years ago,
you first erected it. I know.
Maybe now, so far down this
road you met me on,
the feeling is more distant
inside you than once it was.
Changed. Mutated. More
a memory of great passion
more than a physiological pull.
There is comfort in my doings
and stability in my works.
Fond familiarity in my features
and that is enough for me.
All you need do is love me
in the echo left behind
from your fall.
I can live as ghosts do,
on half recalled longings
and in the phrases and inside jokes
in the little smiles you give me
like when rereading a favorite
book or laughing at a scene
from a movie you're fond of
in spite of repeat viewings.
I don't require any more.
Stretch your wings into the flames
of the pit, my love.
You've landed, long ago
and set about your calling.
I'm still lost in you, as ever
and I'm still falling.