adore
How, exactly, does one write a love poem?
When the agility of my tongue does no justice to
the myriad sensations that grip my throat
at the very sight, smell, taste of you?
The sureness of your fingers, equally facile in delivering
a light, feathery stroke to make me shiver,
or a ringing slap to make me gasp
And catch my bottom lip between my teeth;
These hands are a volume unto themselves...
How could I diminish them to fit upon a page?
And the words that would lend accuracy to the scope of your mind,
the compassion in your soul,
or the gentleness of your spirit
Are no more mine than those required
to describe the surface of a distant star,
whose landscape I could never hope to traverse within my lifetime?
I could wax poetic for a full circumvolution of the moon
on the way that candlelight glints gold flecks in your eyes,
And yet be no closer to the truth of it than when I began.
My words, unfit for purpose, continue to stumble and blunder.
Like baby elephants stuffed helter-skelter into tutus
and shoved onto the stage,
Accompanied by a symphony of the tone deaf,
Conducted by a madman,
As the composer whirls dervishly in his grave.
So instead
I will simply say
That I adore you.
For K.
© mjc 08 May 2021
