She began unconsciously;
the habit sprang from her heart
and manifested itself in reality
without the bother of decision
or cognizant thought.
She was his vessel, even before
she knew to call herself one.
She inhaled him, drawing each
breath he expelled deep inside her,
filling herself up with his sighs.
She collected his laughter,
his thoughts, his tears and
saved them in protected places.
She gathered the words
that lingered, unspoken, in his
pauses and held them in her hands
as if cradling small universes,
before tucking them, too,
safely away.
Every tangible offering, from
the Chinese fortune he had pulled
from the broken cookie shell
to the little note with
“Can you feel me trembling…? ”
scrawled in his shaky handwriting,
was quietly confiscated.
She collected his dreams
like a child does pennies,
accumulating tomorrow’s fortune
and stashing it away.
Every touch of his hand,
every beat of his heart,
the sound of his voice,
his passion, his beauty,
his melodies,
his essence…
she hoarded them all -
storing them away as she had
the notebooks he had trusted
to her for safekeeping.
She began unconsciously;
the habit an insistence of her soul.
She was, in every way she
could think to do so…
saving his life.
You have breathed a cosmos into the finiteness of the page. It is such a well-knit work that its hard to select a particular verse. However after journeying through the rest of the poem there is a poignant culmination here “ She began unconsciously; the habit an insistence of her soul. So innocuously you have made this poem a masterpiece
Very well done! It's greatly refreshing to read a poem written in the third person, instead of the first. It makes the ideas and feelings more universal. Thank you!
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
The double-entendre title, with the reader's initial assumption of its more prevalent meaning, develops through all of the passionate details of a lover's intensely-focused attention, and then, with the restatement of the title, which would be a predictable let-down in a more prosaic piece, culminates in the revelation of its second meaning, completed unexpected! Beautifully crafted!