I, etc

Don’t expect me to believe,
That in my eyes, blossom-torn trinkets
of hello and goodbye,
I could see you.  You were much too skilled at those schoolboy games
to ever let me unearth the treasures
beneath your cheekbones.

I may not know exactly what a prayer is,
A song-spun quilt of sleep and fingernails,
A kettle, copper, brown leaves and pebbles,
Or a figure hewn from wood.
Something borrowed, something forgotten,
Something woven of the songs you played to me.

Yet you know, you assure me, that there is a place where our prayers go,
That they do not blow west, dust into the sea,
That they do not chain themselves to the seafloor
and burrow safe in the sand.
Then they must hide in the shadows where your shoulders cower.
Why will you not take me there?

I will not pretend to understand the desire
Wedged within my rib cage,
It is beyond my waking hours, past the deserts where I dream,
But at least I can say the words.