It is entirely possible

that I was no great lover

and the whole thing was my fault.

Cradled in your hands
I picture the gentle slope of your cheek
and your hair falls down around me like a dark forest thickly.
There is childlight in your eye
and your lips melt into cinnamon
and I love you.
I endlessly love you.
But you're lightning in a bottle
and you've yet to strike out,
as I know you will,
with wrath
with lust
with the last fleeting fire of fallen down youth.

Still,
spread your arms and I'll embrace you
spread your legs and I'll kneel to taste you.

We'll always have that summer,
while we drift away in ceaseless
fall.

Elegy Repeats Itself

I feel foolish for how often I grieve my innocence,
the better days behind me now
that its darkly off to war.
All those nights before the self inflicted slaughter -
I will have no children
I will have no wife.

The order of that lament is telling.

I long to disappear into quiet,
no theatrics
no farewell
just a whisper on a westbound breeze
leaving the faintest inclination
in the dark corners of your mind.
You might have known a man once
but you cannot seem to picture him
and you cannot seem to place him,
but you're sure they were there

...weren't they?