This One Heart (old unpublished poem)

What creates my insatiable need to love?

To linger around, to loathe my own trampled heart?

Contentment shines on the tongue tip of my destiny,

but chimeras and weeds flourish on its unlit path. 

Yet I continue to search out the possibilities for love.

I have built it a shrine but it does not come.

When I check for my reflection in the hearts that go by,

I search for the face of it, even just a trace of it. 

It’s not like a bird has never landed on my shoulder

or a flower not bloomed before my eyes,

but the songs and scents were not alike mine.

Too often, perhaps, I’ve sent good things away. 

Today I am here, once a lover, once loved;

but that was sunsets and sunsets ago.

The moon has wept a silky glow over this quiet night—

where one man sits, and longs for two shadows.