What if I’m never able to write
into your world what I hold within?
At a crossroads, robbed of my
words, awash with doubt, aglow with its
fizzling fallout, the loss of a spark

whose hearth’s warmth the gem of your
heart thrown against the stone of my own
no longer burns leaves me in the cold.
Yearning to know which way and
how far to go, your silence mimes mine

with its tacit truth’s proof more moving
left unspoken, showing that
even in this awkward moment of
slowing down hard, going soft going
through all the motions with no

regard for the consequences, that
even though one of us will end up
even more broken there’s life
after so much dark, yet something left
to hold after all is gone. That I

loved you too much is again
coming on too strong. Even if we
must part, that I still trust you so much
hopefully will touch your soul.
Barrel-chested and broad-shouldered, a

real beast of a Borden whose defeat
has been worse than its hurt, to
be burned by burdening you with my
curse, by pouring out like scalding oil
so poorly stewarded just

how much of what heat I otherwise
usually so secretly feel.
This is what’s been up, this is
my deal, paying for it by only
ever coming so near to the ones

who to me are so dear, a
glimpse, a kiss, and then I disappear.
My temper has smouldered over and
over, sugar soured by sore
words splintering scorching throats, torture

erupted in gloating torrents of
resentment whenever I’ve
attempted to engender my work
with what I feel when I see you and,
overpowered by your

empowerment’s presence, floating on
air then it ends, I fail. Then again,
being speechless more often
than not avails wonder of what makes
its enduring mystery so real.

__________
Notate Bene:
☞ The dedication of the poem is, in fact, to the poet’s Muse, Nadya Ginsburg.