.
So fresh his face,
Nutmeg and ginger
Like mine.  I made
Apologies for being,
Being late.

He was more than
Kind, so mannered
Like minded, unwild,
Not unpredictable,
Like my ex.

In the cafe, earthy
Smells wafted at me,
Hints of loss, of sad
Things unsaid, wet
Piney black hair.

Black hair and blue
Unfathomable eyes,
Eyes of a lad I miss,
A wildness uncaged,
Once caging me.

He stands like William Stanley Moore
a mugshot of an old gangster I saw once
in sepia, stony, strangely clarified, endowed
immortalized in caramel marble
glassy eyes and all--

he plowed ahead that night
fingers twitching, only to turn
around outside of the light
once we'd gone through
the doors and I'd fled down
the stairs in his wake
to clip his heels

I've been chasing his shadow
tying my lead to his bow
far away from my own
dock, a sailboat piping
behind a cottonclad warship

I am small and timid
soft and malleable, unwild
unwoven, strips of silk in the foyer
running through his fingers
sheets sliding down his back
I cannot give what other girls
have given, the way they
dive and plead and swarm
I can only coat, can only
rinse, only lather, I can only
run over--

I am standing at his bookshelf
running a finger over the spines
gingerly closing the cabinet or
slipping into his bed, tucked
away like a porcelain doll
I try
i try
i try

beauty is not unwild
is not quite tame or mediocre
but beauty
for God's sake
is not rare