And you were so happy...
I looked at you with hollow mournful eyes
I could not join you in rejoicing
I was already looking back on this that we have lost
I wish you really understood
the way I saw you
I would want you to know the way
the light on your cheek
still shines in my memory
and your smile as I held you
is the first image that comes to mind
when asked about beauty

The sunrise in summer
is cute, even quaint
The harvest moon in eclipse
is a striking novelty
The first snow fallen fresh
is pretty while pure

And the light on your cheek as I held you

         will haunt me
       as it did
     even then

Not quite enough light

as I rounded the corner;

distinguishing, at first,

a glint of kindness, then it's absence.

If I had danced a bit longer on the edge of your sardonic stage

I would've stumbled on a steady beat of naiveté,

always one note behind your calculating symphony.

The shallow beams from the timeworn ghostlight

cast elucidation on your conductorial robes;

it is not often that one sees

so well in the dimness of love's sweet fog.

Alas, the savage cadenza reverberates

as if a prophetic whisper, illuminated my secret fortitude.

I turned back, fierce with indignation.

This is a show off off-broadway
Filled with prose and cause
Complicated expositions
Stranger than fiction ever was

I've auditioned a cast of characters
And never made the lead
Odd for that on these footboards
Are where they were conceived

I know this part by heart
Hell, I wrote the lines
Seeking my Euridice, my Juliet
Cursed to never find

I have no faith in critics
They rarely get the point
And in all the marvelous performances
I am still not "right"

It's gone dark inside my theater now
The cast and audience have all gone
The curtains took their final bow
I'll seek you from the balconies

I've kept the ghostlight on