Maps
...they don't love you like I love you
Maps
Start anywhere. The star
-shaped scar near your eye,
the gentle dimple from a vaccine,
the dark brown burn below
your bellybutton that cured
some ailment in your youth,
the song lines our daughters
wove into the tender root
of you.
Keats never lived
long enough to learn: that beauty
lives in your embodied truth,
that a name writ in water cannot bear
a life writ in skin.
My love, my fingers
could find their way to you
in the darkest of rooms. Start
anywhere. Let's begin.
I haven’t been around for a while, but I read this when it came through to my email, and for the first time in a long time, wanted to come back if only to comment.
And now I am struggling to say what this poem meant to me, as a reader. So I’ll just say this: I have so much respect for an expression of love that is long-lived, and human, and written by a man for his beloved after time has passed.
I think this is a truly brilliant piece, Ross, and I’m glad to be one of your followers here. This poem belongs in the upper reaches of the poetic stratosphere, as far as I’m concerned, particularly in light of the ‘times in which we live.’
And reading it was a relief to my eyes. Thank you, Ross.
What a lovely piece. Bravo!