Picture You - by Vicente Reyes

Picture You

I was always taking pictures of you everywhere we loved.

I could drink you up and never be filled with your beauty.

You made me breathe deeply and my heart raced toward you.

I loved you so much, and we said it always to each other that way.

''I love you so much'' ''I love you so much''

Your whispers in the night still echo in my ear.

The edge of my heart burns as it yearns for your sweetness,

Like when a child recalls the circus and the surprise of cotton candy.

It is so sweet and fine but gone the moment you taste it.

Love is not meant to be that way.

It is like it was for you and me in our fireplace moments,

As forever as the stone seems when it cradles the embers.

Here, long after, I am still writing for you in the night.

How do tears yet stainglass the crystal room? I will smile as I recall

Your warm face on my chest and the scent of your honey hair.

It was such a splendid time though brief as a comet.

We were so certain we would grow old together if so blessed.

Now neither you nor I would know if the other went by.

Who will caress your firelit cheeks in the cold night,

And for whom will you pour your sweet rose wine?

I wonder if you think of me or if I am no longer a memory.

There was a life without and then there was Vincent,

You might say to a girlfriend or another lover wherever,

And maybe if you for an instant picture our time you may sigh

As I sigh on this solitary early Autumn night when my soul,

Weary from bodily toil and yet satiated with newfound pleasure,

Found a moment's reflection in a photograph of you.

I smile as I realize I love you as you were, but there will be

No frames for the thoughts you could yet bring to me.

Stay in my back pages since they cannot burn.

I will mark the site with such wicked magic when I return

That by the power of lost love's voodoo you will feel the flame

That incited your screams and your sighs by winter's other fire.

I know I will dwell within a song or on a winding road,

In a meadow and in a sudden hotel room with flowers,

In a crowd and in applause and in the darkness you seek,

Or in a name when you read or you hear someone say it.

Ah, nobody will ever write your secret name on the wind as I did,

Or tell you I love your body in your life's blooming hours as I did.

If I could see your eyes or hear your voice when you are here,

In this place of mind when the other feels so near,

I would say well my mind will never touch the ageless you again,

Though my hands did and your image stirs waters that sleep

Until I smell the wine and the eyes that blink in the cup

Tell me it was a dream of tomorrow and I wake up.

Vicente Reyes

September 24, 1998

Internet source: http://www.thepoetsdiary.com/

First North American Serial Rights Available

e-mail vicentereyes@yahoo.com

May be reprinted freely for personal review or academic discussion