Do you know–
I can mark the moment
I loved you
down to the second
I can replay it
as often as I like,
and I do
These things are true:
I want to study your face
as I touch you.
I want to feed you warm bread.
Auden wrote,
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.
What does a poet know?
Safer to be loved–
a safety that has carried me
safely to now.
But you owe me
nothing and I can
give you nothing,
so what is there to fear?
If you feel the same, tell me.
If you don’t—
unsend.
~~
Candace Hisey grew up on a small farm in rural Northeast Ohio. When she is not teaching, she enjoys gardening, hiking, reading non-fiction, and scribbling in notebooks beside her border collie mix Hal. She always seems to be writing about dirt.
