Here is a gift--it isn't much
like an analgesic for a lost limb.
Still, the shape of your ears
and the asters in your voice
make me long to become a gardener
or a choralist.
Sadness like bad whiskey takes me when someone speaks
without your regional hard "R"
that made me want to sign on as cook
on a doomed vessel full of haunted sailors.
I love you. I did then and I do still.
I am a quivering aspen , slender
with black scars, a recorder playing only one tune.
I play it for you, for the shape of your ears, and the sound of your voice.