Leibchen ~ poem

This is it, mein leibchen.
This is the slow torture
of mornings without him.
This is the pale gleam of the sun 
in frost-gripped skies:
the promise of what was once;
the promise of never-returning.

Listen to the crows, mein leibchen.
They know the land, know its sorrows,
know the dark contours of its past.

My eyes have darkened ~ poem

My eyes have darkened 
 since I read your book -
 the blue shrivelled to black.
 You feed me strawberries one by one
 but the light will not return.
 Only nine months sleeping
 by the river,
 drinking the rain,
 will unleash
 the gypsy blue again.

Moon to moon

We have felt love
while travelling from moon to moon,
the months shining between us.
We have smiled dreamily 
from train windows into the 
ink black of night
knowing warmth.

While he sleeps

Speak love,
my tongue is unbound,
my river finds its blue unfolding
close to your sleeping eyes.
I touch, break.
Too late, the cut is made and I am
rigid, unspoken by your breath.

Tonight, one star
hangs close to the horizon,
a stud in the flesh of the closing day.
Its roar lost, receding in the gap
between this life and eternity.

I watch.
Your skin sweats words - 
meaningless, anxious utterings,
answered by the measured stroke
of my hand, soothing, settling,
telling only my longing 
to understand.

I’ll speak
when the first light comes
if my tongue remembers.