Did He?

Did he tell you of tonality
and tangled chords and cords
of strings and symphonies
he bore like these new songs
you try to keep from singing?

Did he?

Did he hold your hand and
let his small heart fast unwind
its boyish words and write
his love, like poetry, upon your own?

Did you see his grace and form,
his hands fine tools for finer crafts,
the lilt, his choices, delicate,
or did you fast and firm react?

Did you tailor him to fit, or
did he fit a tailor you can't
control; a million joys you
could have had, unsaid instead?

Did you?

Did you file each word
and tuck his letters in a pile,
a while spaced between your thoughts
and further conversation?

Did he spill his fears of faithless-
ness and fraught with questions asked,
or did you stake the doubts to death;
consoled, dissolved, and conquered it?

Did he turn a glance, an eye, and back,
and did you follow it; follow it back to his heart
that aches, or did you judge and lose it?

Did he? Did you?

Did he try to paint the walls
the colour of a beauty, marked
with life of art and feelings far
from what you like to cover?

Or did he get to settle in with
you, his twists and turns entwined,
and sign his name like yours, the same,
but with his own embellishment?


January 28, 2009