Preludes to a Sonata

I ask you to be attentive to this, meaning I want your body,
to keeps its ears close against the beating of the landscape,
against the darkness that encircles us like fugitives.

Because only then can I make a narrative of this encounter:
you talking softly to me explaining some formalities we enter
as an agreement to our already decided solitude, your arms
not yet taking me, but already accustomed to the cold,
the words that lift toward the dead branches,
toward the still to be decided sky.

You recognize my fear, how it turns me mute and small.
Or is it the descending fog that you are seeing?
From away we might appear flickering, hungry flames,
still hesitant to touch, still hesitant to withdraw.

There are moments when I want to plunge headlong into
our silences but you know that is not possible.
We are still accountable for our lives.

Is is too much to ask for love? Is it too much to ask
to swing this world into forgiveness?

Years later, I will once again find myself in this place,
in the safety of daylight. As expected, you will be away,
together with the one you have chosen, a cigarette in your hand,
your gray eyes looking into his, which is a form of
analysis.

I will recoll the words and their shells of ghost
back from the brink of an instant already done with.
I shall write them down in my notebook.

And if I am fortunate enough, I may be able
to speak of you finally in the past tense.

--Carlomar Arcangel Daoana