Imminent Domain Poem by Patti Masterman

Right now you're only a photo, and a distant voice:
But I have your wall's pattern
Committed to long term memory;
I'm sure I will see it in my dreams sometimes.

But you are much larger than all of that;
Than tiles and towels in a bowl.
In your sphere of influence,
My little world quakes.

Under the coming of such imminence
I feel the forward air rushing up
Just ahead of the subway's arrival
On it's familiar path, to the welcoming arms of the station.

I can feel the doors as they swish open,
And a million thoughts starting to fly in and out
Like so many frantic travelers
Going anywhere on a nameless, fragrant summer's day.

Behind it all is the transfiguration
Of a pair of eyes, that I seem to know best
From the inside out, from somewhere unshadowed,
Where time does not need to count on it's fingers.

And already I know that it is not the words
That I will get the chance to say to you,
That will haunt me; but all the thousands of words
That we will never say-

So that they will hang open-mouthed,
There in the stagnant stillness, where nothing moves,
And where nothing has its being any more
Once those doors have closed forever.