Tell Me

Tell me!
What is it that you love?
And will it be there for you
   When push comes to shove?

Love is the cactus alone in the desert,
Love is a phantom haunting the anxious opera goers,
Love is the last matchstick in the book
   The jinx when the wind picks up
   The last wisp of smoke
   The aftermath with no flame

Love is the debt and the debtor,
Love is the stuffing escaping from the teddy bear,
Love is the bottom of the bottle
   The commitment to madness
   The last lukewarm sip
   The taste in your mouth the next morning.

Here she comes now…
The way this quiet room grows to be a grand hall,
And the kings and their sages and the knights and pages
Affix their gazes

All but one set of eyes falls upon this flower
These eyes are mine
No one else’s…

Love is turning iron to gold,
Love is the vanishing sandbars,
Love is the sap squeezing through the bark
   The realization that you can’t move
   The panic when it engulfs your legs
   The artifact you become when it
      swallows you whole

Love is the ride home from the desert,
Love is the what drove the phantom to doom,
Love was the time before the flame was mastered
   The innocence in the fig leaf
   The brightening image
   The searing heat when a hand
      touches the burner

There she goes again…
The way this room shrivels upon the stem,
And the jesters and jailers,
Keep me company instead.

All I can give her
Is myself
And I can tell by the look in those eyes -

That’s just not enough…

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