Confessions from a reticent sailor:
the Lies
I was first to introduce the sweet poison.
Latency and this my love is how it takes its own
pains in finding a cure.
This kiss on the cheek, the stiff handshake
good night.
Please, I am not looking for pardon in this
my proposed list of crimes.
I ask only for familiarity and the quick rule of law.
Everyone will face an opposite eventually that
knows nothing of shade trees in moonlight
or the fine gradient between too much
and too soon.
The cloak worn through evening to conceal
the daggers from those I love most.
This my love is what I prop under the porch light,
a rock from the beaches of Rhodes.
Notice the rough complexion: it resembles devotion.
Like the Forgetfulness or the Prison
of Words
I remember the spring when there were only
two days,
one they called promise, the other was compromise:
"I will" and "I won't ever again." You were the robin
who waits
at my window, the spring is a sullen equation,
& inside
there are the day lilies I dote on as though
they were to be
my last vestige of a wet season.
I would rather be the budding leaf on a pear tree.
A memory set loose from what once was forgotten,
it is the way we consider what we inauspiciously
refer to
as our future. One day we will be standing
together.
I will watch the rain blow over the street. You
will have told me nothing, & it is only the warming
radiator
that can explain what we will expect or come
to know
as spring - our faith shaken comme l'oubli ou les
oubliettes des mots.
Kent Shaw is a student in the Washington University MFA program. His work has appeared in Natural Bridge and Delmar
In Posse:
Potentially, might be ... 
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