Once

If I had met you once,
A moment only,
And you decided
To never again
Cast lashes up
And spread your lips
Across your teeth,
White and giving,
And by doing what
Is most your nature,
Smile, generous
Heart, and give
Me exposed light
You own and
I borrow,
I would have basked
For years in warmth
And asked for nothing more.
Providence was kind,
And left me
With my imagination
Unnecessary, short
Of possibility.
How do you stay
Beyond sensation and memory and logical manipulation of light and air and matter and spirit and psyche?
How do you make
A sad man’s life nor longer constructed with the same building blocks of ridicule terror, and deadness of soul?
No answers.

-- Miles Shapiro