Barrier Poem by Stan Petrovich

We talked; indeed, we did
And it spelled a kind of doom.
For intimate conversation is the voice of love
And our sort of love is not meant to exist
Apparently.

Quietly, I tried hard to tune out the quantitative noise
Of my contemptuous life;
But, impossible it was.
There are lips drinking from both sides of the purple cup.
I choked to death on mine...
We cannot drink from the same cup any longer,
Except via words-
Words, words, words-
We are in luck because words,
Like their predecessor, touch,
Come in bundles of joy, if we choose.
And we do.