I once told you that every love poem

I had ever written had been for you

(you demurred, delicately but firmly);

That long before I knew you by name

I knew who you would be, what you

Would say, how you would touch me.

Only where you were was unknown.

Waiting was something I had grown

Comfortable with, grown older with,

And then there was you and knowing

Became something to be endured,

Where you were unapproachable

And deeply defended, knowing you

Would make no other choice, as mine

Could only have been to keep you safe

In a kind of silence where my words

Found their way to you and returned

With different meanings, and then none.

These last years I have grown weary

Of language, the weight of my words

A burden I could never put down.

I hope now, as then, that you knew

I celebrated you and my need of you

The only way I could, that I wonder

What might have been had we known

The terrible tenderness of just one kiss.

We are still separate silences now,

This last poem you will never read.