Is that the heart is aimless; a bare
place until it’s filled, and how some of us
simply won’t be fooled
by the intermittent magic of happiness.
Admittedly, this is a poor start to a love poem,
but I wanted to explain first
how things go wrong,
that there is no way to keep cruelty out,
and how failure is beyond every door
waiting to extend its shadow.
So, I’ll do what poets do; place you
on my page. A moment from real life—
late summer, light of bonfire
in your eyes under a starry night.
Friends and laughter fill the darkness.
And should anyone be wondering
what you look like sitting there,
I’ll only say lovely, and how I want
to remember your smile below
a ball cap for the rest of my life.
I’d like to say that I sat next to you,
that conversation burbled and flowed
like brook water in Spring time, how I might even
have held your hand towards the end.
But those are endings mostly for movies,
because reality is one person always
desiring another more. I confess,
I was tempted to lie, to make more of it here,
but that would be a wrong far worse
than even the fear of losing
something never had.
What I would tell you is that forgetting
is a part of living, everything slipping into less,
how the strongest desires become casualties
of what the body can’t hold on to,
not gone, rather silhouetted
against the dimming light of recollection,
where full meaning blurs, and moments turn
like hurt over a wound that leaves
only the hint of a scar.
What I would tell you is what it means
to be overwhelmed by you,
and this ransomed heart in me now, flare,
like shooting stars across the mind
that I’ll soon strain to recall, until one day
there will be little to nothing left
but what I’ve managed to write down.
Which I see now is what I wanted from the start.
The reason why I brought you here.
Don Monaghan has been published in The Boston Literary Magazine, The Ravens Perch, and the Rye Whiskey Review. He resides in Upstate New York.
