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.