Love-words

I took all the love-words, written, spoken,

those I traced on paper, and on your skin

and made a heap of the promises broken

like snapped chair legs, and I took each jasmine

kiss, fragrant petals unfurled against your mouth,

kept them pressed between the heavy, gilt edges

of waiting and footfalls, the empty music

in the risers of staircases, between the pages

and fingers of the afternoons, the tricks

of hours, and still got nowhere near the truth.