While You Were Praying... Poem by RIC BASTASA

my dear while you were praying
that dawn, as i feign sleep and
as i told you last night that i had
been preoccupied with work and
got so tired, i--

actually sin, and imagine other
things, and new beginnings where
you are no longer a part, not even
a chip, not even a bud, never a
root, but perhaps--

you are a sunflower in the middle
of the valley, and i was floating as
a cloud asking the help of air so
i can go near---

the other whom my heart dreams of
the one i keep in my heart when we
kissed and made love, the one that
i truly love---

which fate took away from me,
no matter what i did, no matter how
i tried.