Taciturnity

His eyes spoke to me
and piled on
volumes and volumes of poems
about an open field of sky
and chaffed grain on the doorstep.

I asked him questions
about his life
and never heard the answers
because the clouds in his eyes
paraded his pain, his longing,
his joy,
and his fire.

They never lied.
There was no dishonesty in
his anger
because when I looked into those
black puddles of cashmere
they glistened with beads
of crystallized salt
and I knew everything
about those nights
he had spent away from me
in a land that was never mine.

I’ve seen his soul flutter
behind the shutter of his eyelids
when I confessed to him
how wonderful his scars
look under the yellow light
of the streets
when he’s out there
waiting for his turn at life.

And I have shamelessly looked
when his glance caressed
the shadows of my arms
reaching out to meet his.
His gaze crossed the mole
on my forehead and rested there
for a while.
I stopped with it and waited for
them to look into mine and
say something I could take away
as a souvenir from tonight’s conversation.

He just trickled down onto
my eyelashes
and slept in my eyes.