the love poem
I wanted to write a poem to you,
about the sound of your voice, of the
silences between,
about the catch between one word
and the next
I wanted to write a poem about the way my hands were so cold
the cigarette burned down and I never felt it, the angry words
were my bones,
fragile
I wanted to tell you we are always silenced
eventually,
like a first kiss, the tentative touch,
the disappointment
of the fumbling hands, the dark
in between
and how if you lived a little closer I would
kiss you properly, the sweetness of words
on lips
the morning newspapers
forgotten
the cigarette lost in the
ashtray, sending smoke signals up
to guide us home