Draft Two

Warmed on your bed by a hundred nightly chills

She grew to recognize the lengths and ends of her body

Through pain, through pang

Through tenderness that came from you

To tenderness that mutely screamed in the quite nights

And every sting was a reminder of your love

Spoils of the war, she lost every time to win

A new scar of your boundless affection

And while she leaves her marks on you

You leave none for onlookers to spy

To inquire, or silently understand

Instead the blows of your love

Seep deeper

Infiltrate

To find shelter under her fevered skin

But every day she seeks and seeks

More and more of this frenzied game

Not allowing you to keep your calm

Not accepting measured moves

Not allowing the dialogue to end

With pleasantries and polite exchange

But if you are reading this

Do not feel moved to take the blame

For she doesn’t wish to smolder

But scrounge your love

For her charred remains.

Draft One

She will always keep your secrets safe

Slip it under conversations

Deftly with a sleight of hand

Brush it from sight

Talk of moss that grows on her thatched roof

Or the dogs that reach for love in deserted blind alleys

Or the china that broke on her Persian blue rug

If you give her your poems

They will always be gathered with the smile

That she receives the first rains of the year with

Falling slowly, falling fast on her small kitchen garden

And when she stopped at the foot of the tree

Eyes glazed by moonlight and insecurity

For a moment before she decided to sit

And look up at you, at its highest branch

Keeping starboard watch like a sailor at sea

Did you resent her then or did you simply forget?

The silent eyes that placed you in her night of stars

And one day they say, she dissuaded herself

From waking up

Tucked between a hundred weightless dreams

Warmed by your secrets that have finally found

A home behind the closed space of her sleeping eyes

And secrets of her own, you will be surprised to know

That played with yours, quietly along the seams.