to the one sitting next to me at the coffee shop

To the one sitting next to me at the coffee shop:

Please excuse me for staring at your
tattoos. I look, not because I want to
but I am curious, like a child
I want to lick the lines on your arms,
skeletons and stones.
(I feel such hunger much too
often these days.) Your fingers,
they pull me from my seat when they
wave--my heart is waving
hello.

portrait of a lover

She is tall, taller when she is hurt.  She smiles with a crooked smile, as if she knows
the truth of things but will oblige your insistence on love, you are so young,
gullible like the morning light, she says.

She cuts her hair short so it won't fly, but it is growing back.

She is soft. At least you imagine her to be so.

She sleeps with the mountains, where the wind blows free and is most lonely.

She is loved even if she does not want it. (And you want it even though she does not have it.)
You are touched even if you don't want to be. (And neither does she.)

She is not brave, so you'll need courage. Because silence is immeasurable space that you don't yet know how to traverse. Because she follows midnight memories into tomorrow as if neither matters very much,  one is just a lesson for the other but you,
you keep forgetting.