The Library Of Longing

"scratch a cynic, find a romantic"

In the library of leaves and longing,
in the candle annex,
near the catalog of degrees of evening light,
I found you, at your desk
as if in the cockpit of an indigo dream.

You had set your glasses down
upon an open page of The Divine Magazine--
the one that no one wants to read;
the one that breaks everybody's heart.

I am here to sign the register
of those for whom your face is the only face--
the Special Collection, shown only by arrangement,
of the unlocked, though tangled, vine.

What can I say, but that I love you?
though you are not free
though you are not mine.

I know enough to say nothing else--
not here,
not now,

but I'll leave these poems on every stair
to help you find your way
even through these, the most terrible volumes;
even through separation and broken bindings,
even through the most blinding tears.
______