One Night Stand Poem by Joshua Swanson

I touch my fingers to the mirror,
Feel them slowly start to sink,
Into the deep morass of feelings,
And thoughts I canot bear to think.

Down within the pooling silver,
Eyes stare back, in brown and blue,
One pair shadowed, one still dreaming,
Thoughts of me, and mine of you.

Deep pools in which a mortal soul may drown,
Beneath still surface turbulently seethe,
The shelter of the night is almost flown,
Like a drift of fallen autumn leaves,

That shift aside to show what should be kept,
concealed within a beating gilded cage.
For hope, like nights bright shadows, flies away,
and cannot stand the new dawn to engage.

If the fire within you burns not hot,
Then come to me and warm it with my own,
For though the silken touch of flesh shall fade,
Bright memories can never be overthrown.

I dreamed a dream, and in that dreaming died;
To have that fire extinguished with the dawn,
That softly spoken words had brought to life,
and thus in absense have that life withdrawn.