elegy
Years ago, it was you I loved
in sleepless nights. I never slept then.
Or if I did, it meant nothing to be asleep.
For a while I remembered you passionately,
as if you were a dead person: I remembered
your teeth and your earlobes,
as though to lose them was to lose everything.
I no longer love you, not even the idea of you,
which I loved for so long after you left.
Not even the dream of your curving eyes remains.
But perhaps every man is you, since you.
Somehow my heart retains you,
or something of what you were.
Perhaps it's you I reach for still.
Another you, behind a different face.
You're always the same, but never the same.
Sometimes I forget what to call you,
and remember only that I longed to call,
and stumbled, but you have never caught me.
copyright 2007
b. lipton
in sleepless nights. I never slept then.
Or if I did, it meant nothing to be asleep.
For a while I remembered you passionately,
as if you were a dead person: I remembered
your teeth and your earlobes,
as though to lose them was to lose everything.
I no longer love you, not even the idea of you,
which I loved for so long after you left.
Not even the dream of your curving eyes remains.
But perhaps every man is you, since you.
Somehow my heart retains you,
or something of what you were.
Perhaps it's you I reach for still.
Another you, behind a different face.
You're always the same, but never the same.
Sometimes I forget what to call you,
and remember only that I longed to call,
and stumbled, but you have never caught me.
copyright 2007
b. lipton