Through waning afternoons we glide
the watery peripheries of love.
A silence, a quietude falls.
Above us-the sagging pavilions of clouds.
Below us-rough pebbles slowly worn smooth
grate in the gentle turbulence
of yesterdays forgotten rains.
Later, the moon like a virgin
lifts her stricken white face
and the waters rise
toward some unfathomable shore.
We sway gently in the wake
of what stirs beneath us,
yet leaves us unmoved ...
curiously motionless,
as though twilight might blur
the effects of proximity and distance,
as though love might be near-
as near
as a single cupped tear of resilient dew
or a long-awaited face.
Originally published by Romantics Quarterly
