The Poetry of You
A poet inscribes his lost love in invisible ink, its subject hidden in plain sight.
The poetry of you
Is not found in the gilded spaces
Where affluence and privilege
Reside with mirrored faces
Complacent soulmates sharing
An uncontentious point of view.
The poetry of you
Is chaotic and complicated
Each verse a bittersweet ballad
Of devastation, emancipation
Fall colors forever suspended
In saturated summer hues.
The poetry of you
Flows like ink across your skin
Fifty-five stanzas only I knew
But now am blind to
A new line etched for every trauma
Each red-raised scar and cauliflower ear
Iambic pentameter for a turbulent history
That leads at last to liberty, to majesty
Each stumble and recovery
A hard-won stoic victory.
I cannot claim to stand unscathed
By facets of this sonnet’s face
Revised, rewritten, and redacted:
The stranger’s face you show me now
As it turns from me, as you turn from me
As if you never knew my name
My sorrow deeper than my shame.
Yet measure to meter, word upon word
I yearn to retrace your invisible ink
Even as it ebbs from my fingertips
A new rhy…
