For A Lover, Unseen

Michael Varga
September 20, 1982

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.

Michael Varga 1982

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