A Michelangelo


Fix your mouth you said
back then when I
caught you
off guard by mirroring yours.
Today, I see the soft beige a
rounded smile in my periphery.
I love you
just like then but quieter now. Like
bread rising under a tea towel, I
extend it with tenderness
keeping out a tasteful eye of
admiration, keeping myself astray.
Do not touch.
The plaque beneath the statue
reminds me that, Hellenistic art can
fall apart if pressured by its viewer.
I do not touch. Nor write nor call.
I think of you
only sometimes. Send you thoughts
of unconditional happiness and
that other one –
when I see a blackbird, or hear it
singing in the dead of night.
You were not a blackbird though, but
a puppet mastered by your mind.
Fragile but touched, torn from one
day to another.
Now, calcified and settled, grown
roots and seen the sun then struck,
become a Michelangelo, a steady
wonder of this world. Someone we can
never touch –
I am glad.