Not your hands, my love, nor your ordered caresses
so long elating my split heart free of its splintered crutch,
widening a soul’s eyes to a world-view a callow’s guesses
could never near; no, it is not your touch
lingering red on my lips, altering every word
falling ever softer than any earlier voiced, like the change
of rain dropping from a pounding torrent to a glistening heard
in the silent brightness of a Sun beckoning blooms to estrange
their pointy sepals clinging, to jettison this dulling green
away and down to sour to a fetid brownness
so unsuited to the sweet scent of a blossoming,
of petals embracing, opening to all that now is.
Rather, your leaving, my love, unseasoned and out of sync
left me agape to savor shades beyond our bodies’ brink.
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