They say only the very young

who are tender of heart

will remember to wait

long beyond

what is sensible

and this I know is false

for I am on my third

packet of tissues

and have heard every song

the radio cycles

even those we used to dance to

clumsy and hungry for

some other movement

your hands finding my waist

as they always have and

the delight of your fingers against

my skin

I was and am

a creature of longing

because of you

no more bound to my human disguise

than the hummingbird

who with winter

succumbed to our dreams

and the rain falling today is not

a harbinger or totem

it is the rain we kept inside

when words would not do

and tears had exhausted chaffed cheeks

so accustomed to smiling

when you rounded the corner

waving until your hand reached mine

and we ran headlong and urgent

shedding the costume of girls

painting feathers and moonshine

finding gems in the crease and fold

of each others desire

you gave me a brush

made of horse hair and

I dropped pearls along your clavical

from my deep swim of you

in shade we float

night lilies, roots wrapped around

the other

open for a time only long enough

to speak through our kisses

the rage of separation

softened against

this knowing stillness

breathing against the other

where could you go?

far enough

to have mislaid

your certainty

it is only ever us

nothing more needed

seek a name

we have written ours

into the very fabric of

sky