Last night
I listened to torch songs.
Music for the heart,
plain,
sincere,
repertory of eyes,
mouths,
voices,
I will never see again.
To be in love,
ready for love,
shaped for love,
romance.
Like yellow sand
suddenly carpeted with flowers,
syncopation,
never to go away forgetting
the unendurable masquerade
that hid longing.
Touched now
only in a song,
a medley of moments,
hazy confusions.
How love came,
how difficult it was
in racing heartbeats,
touching hands.
How nothing so beautiful should end,
yet perished into flame
into ash,
and trailing messages.
I remember it all
thanks to the songs.
A give away face,
a strangled affair,
the spring incomparable in bloom,
and afraid it could all happen again.
Longing for things like this to happen,
and wanting never
to go there again.