A poem for Wendy, because she never saw it coming.
“You’ve never written a poem for me,” she said in the car
and at the dinner table
and on long fall walks
and in the evenings just as I’m on the verge of sleep.
She doesn’t know about the tomes
Thousands of pages of half starts in my head
the timid songs and psalms that have
inhabited everything —
except that sheet of paper
Dedications to the mother of my boy.
Passion-rants at the woman who won’t let me look away.
Villanelles for the lover who slides into my dreams
like fingers skimming still, dark waters.
All collected in the grey folds of my brain,
sloppily arranged like hardbacks on soft, random shelves.
No, I’ve never written her a poem.
I’ve written her a book.
This is simply the first page.