Poetry: To Robert Jason Leahey

I had in mind your fallow hair,
in hands your curious face.
You entered thoughts and lurked in words,
a shadow near or far.

So then my plots I under lined
with clumsy traps that showed
the angled mirrors of a boy
who longed for tricks of light.

But when the weeks began to glue
and months began to build,
I thought you time and page had shelved
in memories turning cool.

So clumsy traps were set aside
and mirrors hid away,
and pen was put to paper now
in search of truths that’d fled.

But as I waited through the nights
my page and lives were blank.
My mind askittering would grasp
that nothing had been known.

I’d built my hopes with gossamer strands
and stuffed them full of dross.
I’d twined my castles and their floors
with memories fat and stray.

So now I looked with twice-opened eyes
and tried to build anew
a different home, a different way
to put me up above,

beyond the shadow of your touch,
beyond the clumsiness,
beyond the stains of memories,
beyond your startling reach.

Unwriting you from page and ink
I cleaned you from my thoughts;
since time and page had gathered dust
I tore you from new work.

But then the words were hollow and
the lines rang grey and false,
and he who pried apart the page
would nothing under find.

And calibrated angst and smarts
would only build to this:
a careful house and careful days
of waiting craziness.

So now I take the clumsy but
I take away the traps;
I take the mirrors and the dreams
but take away the light;

I put them all in front of you
in all this messiness;
I was given this to live and use,
this home, this time, this you.

I have in mind your fallow hair,
in hands your curious face.
You enter thoughts and bolster words,
a shadow next to mine.

And when this home should fall to ground
and when this time should pass,
your fallow hair and curious face
will stay and mark these truths:

I stopped and knew it would not do
to hide behind my words.
And if I have but all these words,
these here are due to you.