Tenderly, I think of you, lovelier

than I have ever known. Your eyes sing,

your voice dances, your hair, fluffier

and wilder than when gypsies laugh and fling

their hearts like tambourines and a fiddle

plays. You dazzle me, but like a rainbow

I can’t reach, a star I can’t touch, a riddle

I can’t penetrate--someone I don’t know.

Our words, when we speak, ricochet.

Gestures I once caught fall from my hands

and bounce across the floor and roll away

into a corner of the room where nothing stands

that is a part of us, but a part of you,

broken, glistening, struggling to be new.

****

The old year ends and I think of you knowing

you are hurting me by breaking pieces

of yourself away, taking them and showing

others who your are, exposing creases,

baring edges, opening cracks and ripping

deep into the core of things. It hurts

you too, I know, to feel love slipping,

not knowing why, but knowing changing shirts,

and pants and putting on a crazy hat

is not enough to give you what you need.

Somehow, I’ve hurt you too. I know that--

a hurt so deep in you that you can’t bleed,

or see the wound but only feel it there

urging you to leap and dangle in the air.

****

The new year comes and I watch you climbing

out onto your cliff, trying hard to stand

and overcome the winds that blow, the blinding

snows, the icy forces that demand

obedience and fear. I watch you trying

not to hear my cry, straining not to give

away this chance--knowing that denying

your urge to crawl out to the edge and live

would mean that you would plunge back to the dust

and lay there like a stone. So here we are,

frightened by the distance, trying hard to trust

the other’s stamina, not wanting to mar

the other’s life so much so that when you stand,

looking out, perhaps, we’ll want the other’s hand.