(Not) In Love

(Not) In Love  (Five Tankas)

What left me that day
Hard to describe in absence
Still unknowable
Burns through me like heartbeats stilled
By seismic shock - an earthquake


Didn’t know you lied
Lied like that through omission
How your truthful face
Had concealed some other truth
Known always only to you


Released from that pain
Of encoded silences
Trapping me always
With every turn of your cheek
In the new pain of freedom


In recovery
Plangent tears provide no balm
The beast in my chest
Howls complacent platitudes
Longing for a healing sleep


Reawakening
Conscious that my heart still beats
New life has claimed me
Offered gifts of sprung roses
I bathe in their fresh perfumes