Valentine
It’s all a matter of seeing what is right here:
the face of the beloved, the eyes closed,
graying lashes on the cheekbone. The eyes
open, blue washed into green, changing
in light and time. It is all necessary as
time or how remembering changes
the face, looking to see what comes
turns the head. It is all a matter of thinking,
What are you thinking? When did it start,
how can it end when the weight, the lightness
of this seeing makes the familiar new,
the unknown an old friend? It is all right
on the cusp of the horizon: deepening
blue folding back into orange behind the tree
behind you. It is all a matter of seeing
in the delicate and wild space between us
that isn’t really space at all, how whatever
we know can be erased and remade with the other.
How our time is not a force rushed through us,
but a kind of valentine we can open right now,
in the eyes of the other.
