Mists of glass

Do I tell you to look me in the eye

and speak your mind, move around, come and go
between hours? choose between things to say and know
and yet not know a thing and not care why?
you live and love the way you want, and I


am content to watch and wait and love, so
let’s skip the undying bits and hollow
pieces, for everything that lives must also die.
And if this love must live so quiet, so deep
that not a ripple on the surface shows;
without any heat, burn me so intense -
that much harder surely then to keep
it burning steady, remain unseen and glow;
it too must die, though not before life ends.

 

 

It burns my life quicker, it bleeds me pale

it thaws my springs, paints autumns resplendent
it freezes every frame, slows each moment
feels like a rare verse written on a frail
misted window pane, mists in which to trail
your name, as though this hand was always meant
to write chants of nothing else. All figments
and facts circle back to this one small detail.
Even if all dies, and with me this love
too must fade, I am still content that I
have had that window pane to breathe upon
once, write your name there, it’s more than enough -
a spring, an autumn, just one wintry sigh,
and words on mists of glass before breath has gone.

 

 

Because even that’s not given, the read

and exhale, the quick puff of breath, the mist;
it’s not a right to trace names, co-exist
with them on the same panes, and plane of need.
The slow moves of fingers on moisture beads,
voluptuous glazes of warmth – can’t  insist
on them, just happen to be there transfixed,
before both the fingers and glass are freed.
And I know for sure that it’ll come to pass
that the breath will stop, the pane will warm up
far too much for any words to be traced;
marks and verses, your name on mists of glass
even when they’re traced with the utmost love
cannot endure and must be soon effaced.