Stories Untold (untold)

1.

this anemic regret malingering
once an impermanent passion boils away
is no more than a bland reduction
of possibility with no entree to accent

residue of an unplanned meal
prepared out of order and ruined
art's fecundity again festers
and we languish famished in privation

i have sought warmth in your nest imagery
but your tidal metaphors
draw down against my feet as they recede
bearing you away into watery darkness

eroding as they go your name
ringing me ephemerally in ritual
leaving me only bas relief
remnants of your hand's twirling

2.

in the reaching out we lose something
of ourselves even when we seek
to stay an illusion withdrawn
extension and its object dissevered

a sheaf of your pages
i have indulged reluctantly
as one wiltingly recounts
a time-worn humiliation

you called my name i imagined
in a hundred different voices
strewn about like rose petals
leading to your door

like these sixty-one pages
sixty-one petals and the only ones
i asked you to leave for me
(when i offered myself for yours)

these five dozen and one
petals have led me to shore
where your high-tide line
limned in kelp hems my stance

and the missing moon
the woman passing in a blur
are but seawater tongues
that trail down the tops of my feet

and leave them encased in sand
that grasps at my ankles
and holds me in place
awaiting the next wave

composing poetry i hesitate to share
because i vowed my next poem
would have nothing to do with you
(and i might drown for shame)