That's all I get to write

I keep thinking - I’ll write this or that

about your lashes, the way your knuckles fold;

how your voice sounds at the digital chat.

But I don’t; all things cannot be told

in neat verses, iamb by iamb, in slow lines

of pentametric perfection, rolled

and wrapped snugly in straight/slanting rhymes,

the syllable counts precisely controlled,

rising and falling even as your breath;

but maybe it’s ragged now, maybe you hold

your words and life back, their length and breadth

concealed. Maybe you too have grown old.

And that is all I get to write for verse:

your lashes; and how our worlds diverge.