Poem – “If you were” – Modern Romanticism – 1/18/2022

If you were
allowed to enter
these burning arms, read
the torn pages I have carried,
no tears could escape you,
no weather would erase you.

Born onto the snow
where petals lost their softness.
Born to be
brought low
to the same furnace and flame
of the biting frost,
where we knelt.

Watcher
to the setting moon.
Gatherer
among the cherries of passion,
burning in a different moment
where breaths never die.

You lay with God.
Cradled, among the earth,
while warm.

If you were
never a life brought down to be
blended of white eyes
with razor snow.

If you dreamed upon the throat
where I laid a branded kiss.
If you were farther carried
to the distant hope,
listening to the heartbeat
speaking for what is missed.