What could I give to you--

What could I give
to you--

... it's not entirely clear.

Are there stones,
bones
turtle shells
wren's feathers
bits of oxen tooth

That really adequately confess love?
A true love?

So many rings
Gorgeous, some

But they

pale

Before I had no fear of death. In my misery I invited it. Bring it on, turn out these lights.

Since falling in love with you, that is what I fear the most. Not seeing you again. Not feeling your warmth, your hair.

I fear the finitude of this life.

Not as a petty coward,
but a man who loves a woman.

It stokes a great fire in me.
Just this vulnerability.
And that is what I pluck,
straight from my aching chest.
I place it in your hair
Already simmering in copper.

You are the one as only

you

could wear my heart.

Not as a garland of offal
like some demon. Some banshee
No. You would hold it in your own burning
Orb of fire.
Incinerate worlds with it.

An angel
A Faerylight

That is why you are the only one.
Only possible one.
Only one.
Just one.
One.