Total Eclipse
Not wanting to write
for fear that anything–
the passion for the page,
the love of carbon ribbons & erasers–
will distract me from your face,
from your eyes green
as the flickering base of flames,
& your tarnished copper hair.
My love is thick as rust
& just as hard to scrape off.
It glows like the green roofs of paris:
it shines in the sun like dropped pennies.
I fix on your face
until I am blurred & bleared,
until my eyes cannot focus
& all words become one.
Oh let me write you into my life!
I am afraid of rust & tarnish,
but even more afraid of this gleam.
When my eyes have taken you in,
when my body has eaten
& spat you out,
when my heart remembers to beat
& my fingers remember the pen–
will I still remember you then,
boyish & sly–
yet a total eclipse of my sun?
