Lack

Here is a love letter--
I send it in the fox's teeth.

It rings like a hollow steel bar struck against a church bell.
It shivers through my bones.
It flows downhill,
And makes my knees shake.

Without your summer smoke hair--
Without your Turkish coffee eyes--
The world is as blank as new snow.
I lie in it, freezing,
Trying to wet my fingertips against myself so that I can think straight...

No use.

Your name has made a web of tendrils beneath my skin--
I am dizzy with herb, desire, idiocy.
Birds feed on me,
Dreams first.

Here is my lack,
Growing rows of ache like a window box.
Here is my bounty.
Show it to me--
I am blind.

Hurry back, my only heart.
I linger, a hieroglyph in crimson pigment,
Every surface stone.

In the meantime,
Here is a love letter
Written on roseskin.
I send it in the fox's teeth,
Rolled--
Ribboned--
For my distant love, from your half-girl, waiting.
_____ 

linked to Kenia's challenge at Real Toads. She asked that we write a message to someone.