She
The nameless one
Not because of some grand act of malicious intent
No, quite the contrary
She, who has broken through to the foreground
only to fade back into the background
with such ease and subtlety
She, who sat comfortably in the worn brick
house of conversation
She, who's lasting impression left me neither
stunned nor hopelessly enamored
She, who is not named
who is far from the spectrum of malicious intent,
falls just borderline of the emotionally illicit.
Breathing softly into the ears of affection
from clear down the hall,
She, who is not named
cannot be named,
because what word would exist
that wouldn't rationalize and ultimately compromise
for the sake of understanding, and leave nothing
but a word instead of a feeling
that tried to slip by but got caught
too far and too close to the in-between.
But as if any of that matters.
Wipe the glass clean as much as you wish,
there will still be a pair of lips.