Hush. Let me touch you while the air is still. Leave the star’s blush un-dirtied by the lurid face of beautiful words, and let not the dawn hear your thoughts. While the havens burn with color, feel a heart quiver, and flesh prickle, and pores seep in the promises no tongue may conquer nor poet hold. For even as our fingers trace maps on the blue roads of crooked wrists and twisted hips, the palms already forget. And in the taste of sweat, the palate stings in an aftertaste lovers’ call loneliness. Tell me, does it linger?

No, hush, my love. For later when we part the sounds of desire will stain your teeth, and when biting your lip you will find the music stale. No melody whispered between silent hearts may be sung from a crude and open mouth. You will call a tune of love bared before the moon wanton in the sun. No moment in the dying breaths of night exists to be relived.

Oh, darling, forget me as a man. And when your jaw aches to shape the prayers unsaid, hum anything but a blundered rendition of the symphony we weave. Let the silence be the notes yearning to take flight. For in a word lies nothing but the meaning of a phrase and curves of a letter, and in the keys of hymn nothing but the bony mouth of ivory and shapeless hands of a tortured maestro. The mind has already remembered to forget the trail of veiny paths. Nothing but shadows linger now.

Oh, darling, recall me as a madman. In trying to capture you in chains of ink to the prison of a page, know I’ve d***ed myself. For as I recapture you in every polished word my tongue dare speak, I find my voice obscene. It seems prose has yet to ensnare all I wish to hold. And as I retrace your lips tugging at the seams in hidden horrors and waning hopes, I find beauty only in that which no word may trap. Perhaps it is best creation is left to the depths of a woman. I am too coarse a creature, too heavy of hand, to let life flow from my blood. Even from the womb of a pen.

Hush. Let me touch you while the twilight dies, and on the morrow weep not for words unsaid. Oh, my love, man knows not how to speak the words to touch our hearts. Be content with the psalms of hands fumbling in the dark.