You were all smile and elbows.
I was young and stupid and didn’t know
that I would not forget the first time
I saw you, all those many years ago.
And we were close for what seemed like
forever, and maybe it was.
I wasn’t a poet then.
I could barely rhyme.
All I wanted was a kiss.
which I’ve never gotten,
which I was too shy to ask for.
I eventually knew
that I shouldn’t.
But I’ve held you when
you cried
because they laughed at you.
Held you while you laughed
at our private jokes.
I knew your many secrets,
but I had to let them go
because some friends
are more important than
kisses.
But
I can still feel the way
you moved, feel your warmth
against my hand and my cheek.
To this day,
on rare occasions that I let
someone touch me,
it’s still you that I measure
their heat against.
Some things you just can’t forget.
I confess that I no longer love you.
Haven’t in a long time.
How could I?
But I still watch from afar
as you approach life with
the joy
that you do.
And I’m happy for you,
that your life is what you
want it to be.
That it’s not with me,
that’s not a subject for me
to worry over.
You’re where you should be.
As am I.
I am not the one who holds you at night.
I am not the one who kisses you good morning.
I wouldn’t be if I could.
It took me many years to realize
that I never was and never would have been.
But what I am
is
the man who has taken
the desire you inspired
and used it to drive a life
of verse,
of poetry,
and yes,
of lust,
through the heart
of a stack of pages
with a steadily flowing
pen.
I find no regret in that.
I dream of us as we
never could have been.
No regret in that either.
I never once saw you that way,
our modesty forbade,
but I could describe you
nonetheless.
My only regret is
that
I have never forgotten enough
of you to remember
someone else
so clearly.
I can go back to that very first day,
when you sat alone
at the head of the table,
and I was smitten
and couldn’t understand
why no one else
was.
The day when you introduced yourself,
I became a poet.
I just wasn’t aware of it.
Yet.
So maybe I do love you still.
Just a little bit.
But you can’t love me back
or I’d have nothing to base
the life of a poet on.
And that’s all the life I have.
Then where would I be,
a bankrupt old wordsmith
with no foundation
left
for his words.
I have all the love I need,
because I can’t have yours.