I wielded my very first verse
From your finger-combed hair
As it cascaded in the sun...
From the ocean in your eyes
Waking to new language.

I metered my first lines
From a breath you exhaled
On a late December night...
From a flower you slipped
In my frazzled notebook
To bloom eternally
Above the soil in my heart.

I conceived rhythm and rhyme
From a kiss you never gave me...
From your voice bespeaking beauty
And the art of every craft.

Folly upon folly it was,
Full of resounding vowels too.
Oh, when I think on I, U, and Y,
Wish you were least suspecting
You’d live your life and die.