Grazed by the sun’s last glance at dusk.
A red wine droplet on the table cloth
spreads quietly,
a small scar left by the thorn reminds me…
even when the vase is empty,
there is still a rose in the garden.
It is anguishing to wonder if
you were also waiting,
wondering if you should reach for my hand
on that stormy indigo night.
It never happened.
Love can be the slow burn of ‘not having,’
Akin to the last light
of the waning amber glow in the wax,
a gray wisp from the extinguished wick.
Recollection of unrequited love is
the striking of a wet match in the wind.
You were curiously touching the grape leaves,
standing on a hillside in Domaso.
You had your back to me.
Beyond you, Lake Como. Beyond that,
the Alps.
And beyond that,
the end of a love story that never begins.
I attempted many unfinished poems
spellbound by honeyed eyes.
Walking between the rows of terracotta roofs,
on cobble streets, I authored us in my mind,
bending truth
in the forge of a heart set afire.
Whatever you looked at,
you saw it differently than others,
like Da Vinci saw the Vitruvian Man.
Like whenever I looked at you, how you became
an ever intriguing stranger,
familiar, yet always new.
Beauty is a view from the window
of two passing trains,
a boundless countryside
interrupted by the flash of another’s face.
The entrancing visage of a companion
who slipped into the void between light and sound.
Quietly, our time came and went
barely noticeable, faintly traceable…
like the seasons changing in a small town.
