He Wrote Her a Love Poem

He wrote her a love poem:

It was a usual love poem,
telling of desire by telling
of things beyond desire — the skies,
for example —

describing her a little subtly, by
pretending not to describe her;
not speaking of the flash of her eyes
or the black mass of her hair that
sang her praises in the wind,
but of the stillnesses of her hands
and gaze, that so erased him
— and so on.

Then he thought of singing it to her,
under rain, with ink flowing,
and the verses melting but pouring still
from his heart, because he thought
she was engraved there,
already forever engraved. Then
he looked into that space where
his heart should have been
— where his heart should
have been.

And in that space
his poem ended.