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Then as the lights dimmed in the theater
a hush began to fall like a first snow
and silence soft and cool like eiderdown
blanketed us all in every row
As we sat there waiting in the darkness
for the players to emerge from the glow
that lingers like fog when the curtains part
I could not help myself once from stealing
an intermittent glance of your profile
from the safety of my periphery
In all these interminable moments
my heart brimmed with adoration until
it overflowed and made my palms perspire
I longed to reach out for the tiny hand
that you had rested upon your left thigh
to enclose it and clasp it in my own
like a locket hides a wordless promise
but i burned with the question left behind
by every word we’d not yet spoken
or had thought of but swallowed hard to hide
thinking ‘we’ll get around to it…in time’
but we never did and then here am i
wondering to myself ‘have i the right
to even dream of all that skin of yours
i’m swimming in each time i close my eyes
and even when i open them to find
that now every moment of my life
only feels like i’m drowning in your wake
catching fragmented glimmers of your smiles
from below the waves while you pass me by?’
We sat there like tourists among natives
at times chattering away with the air
of insouciant explorers, but at times
eyeing each other through the silent haze
only staggering suspicion sustains
all the while harboring a winsome hope
that the words we were leaving unspoken
would not now and forever want meaning
We were stunned, somehow ashamed that our eyes,
two tiny lights misting like windowpanes,
served as our foremost means of expression
And so we hung our heads abashedly,
stunned schoolchildren flush with embarrassment
caught in the act of uncovering that
It’s for a rare breed to savor silence
So silently we let that remain that
Though this is all I’ve ever thought about
