I Don't Know Your Voice

I don't know your voice.

I know the depth of your gaze,

the resonance of your touch,

the linger of your kiss.

You are perfectly awkward

and sly in corridors; you're

ever so present, tender,

in singular moments;

still, you are absent

as the sun after dusk.

And though I am one who

practices guarded abandon

to near perfection,

it is no match for your sway.

I felt my power dissolve  

in a solitary moment -

an unspoken moment -

where you held our ground.

Now, I sift through this urge

to hear your words, to feel

the temperate climate

under your chest, to listen

to your breathing

in sleepless, unforgiving nights.

I wait, clutching dreams

with enough fantasies and fears 

to begin and end

a hundred love affairs.

I shall learn to forget you

when the moon goes home.

© 2013 Helena Malheur

L.A.