Coming In From The Cold
how familiar must he be
for me to forget i love him?
if i memorize the lines of his face,
or muss his hair,
or step on his toes,
will i begin to love him less
than how he comes to me,
threadbare and weatherbeaten,
in utter vulnerability?
would loving him less bring me home,
or is my home with that
tender moment of surrender
his eyes will never see...
the look i allow myself in darkness
or between shadows of changing light,
swept up in forevers
no one would ever make me admit
existed?
if i glow today, it's simply
because he looked my way.
such plainest of things
make way to my soul
with a childlike certainty
and not without the faintest wonder.
some things, i guess,
will just grow old with me...
like religion, or gravity,
things turn into laws,
and become as wind,
as fire, as God...
how can there be so much beyondness
to this simplicity?
he comes to me
as a child comes in from the cold.
i will be here for him
for as long as my self-defenses steel me.
there is a sweetness to being needed
for the wrong reasons
and in spite of false dreams.
he just has no idea
how at night i creep
under covers alone,
burning in melancholy.
