“Valediction”
This time of aching lures me to the
fractured comfort of my dreams
and I needn’t grieve that you care
not how I may contemplate the
overture to a summer storm.
So vague are you, and at once as formidable
as a foaming burst of starlight
that I am bound to sustain impressions
you cannot account for or control.
I have snagged my sense of purpose
on your most indifferent smile.
So little need I know of what lies
faint in your hurried eyes,
and that much less would I pry from
gazes fallen fast upon an uncompromising spirit.
But of the hands I have studied so
whose lines became a thoughtful snare
I did loosen a knot or two, and even
braided back the fraying ends of some--
all this I have done, that I might spin
a likeness of all you are to me.
Before you thought it prudent to
defend that which you bind in the
palms of your hands,
I have read--
and read kindly now passion, now fear,
both heartache and resolve...
And before you realize the meaningful task
that compels me thus,
judge not hastily;
‘twas but a fraction of the smallest line I stole
when we pressed hands,
and smaller still
the brave space
left in remembrance of me.