6.

Long the doldrums begin
after you walk toward the light.
I am left huddled
with tendrils sprouting from my underside
plunged
into a troubled nightmarish mound.

You reappear,
autumn scent, crisp,
polished with a new wardrobe.
My heart, warmed
in an instant
thaws the cold that slush in my veins.

I have become gnarly
rooted deep in the shade.
But I limp over to tug at your sleeve
when in the past
it would be the prelude for love—
your breasts, my mother's milk,
your pulsating breaths hurl me to land's end
where my purpose of being
clear as light
is your ecstasy.

In the absent years
I clothe your naked body with my mind.
Sorrow the undergarment,
clasps in denial,
a dress sewn with envy
and angry shoes to walk away.

But my pride withhold
a peculiar cloak,
woven with golden youth,
flaming hope
stitches a passion
that would have ruptured heaven.

This
I give you
now

for only through wrangling
these futile years,
alive
but not living,
finding meanings,
losing them,
I grasp the essence
of love.