To Write You, Not. Poem by Maree Scarlett

Every echo
in your voice
dresses in white.

My secret love, without love, within repose!
My insufflator smouldering me in jasmine!
I gasp at the inspiration you breathe!

Though an evergreen orchestra plays -
I turn my ears away from your crescendo.

Beneath my heart
an unblemished rose lays:
poised, her fragrance anoints my stomach, my veins
in colours, of black magic cast
in a velvet weft.

I do not want to write about you.
Our trilling is held too close in notes.

To write you is painfully beautiful, sublime.
We trill closely, we are far apart.

Your echo
is crystalline
and turns to moon-tears
at night.

I hold your tears above the rose
and bathe them
in full flavour of light,
when the moon is full.
Crystal tears, in scintillant crystal
immersed in a clarion river
of blue.

Every echo
of your voice
dresses in white.

My secret love, without love, in my silence!
Into stillness we emerge, trilling
discrete continents.
I hear your echo
and fear, if I hear your voice
I will be changed.