On watching an artwork 14 years on
Your porch – quarantine space deemed safe –
feet between us like miles
like years
Put it out there
you said of the work I hazarded as
Perfect
then quickly backpedaled to
It was all it could be.
And I listened – like I do –
and then watched
horrified and bewitched at the creation that long ago
had eaten and burned all of my green bits.
Is all love like that?
Eruptions from our deepest veins
cooled to plutonic bruises,
whispering beneath their hardness
they can never be safe friends.