Anyway, you want.

Has it been a month or a year?

You would know better than I.

You know me better than I know myself, onlooker.

You are the voyeur I seduce so invitingly.

Am I an open book because I am chaste or

Because I am self-righteous?

Can one be both of these things?

Who would know.

Not I.

Perhaps you, onlooker.

What I'm getting at is: this is not directed at just anyone

(though it is laid bare for all to peer),

This is for you.

You know who you are.

You, she, her, but never mine;

(though I am yours).

I feel no shame in being yours.

But why do I feel shame in calling you mine?

For I could never capture you,

Couldn't dare.

You, the sparrow I sometimes hold in my palms,

Quivering, inhaling, releasing,

Blinking a selective palette of shades,

Balancing so uneasily, on my palms,

Wings ruffling,

Preparing to fly.

The window is open of course,

It always will be.

I tell myself you wouldn't dare,

Wouldn't even attempt,

But life has taught me that I often try to be optimistic.

Though greater optimism is watching you diminish in the horizon,

Believing you will someday return.

But I have only ever had this one fear.

Perhaps I am the only one

To be so childish,

Or to have only one fear.

But when we're together,

Your form in my grasp,

Or my form in yours,

Your beak imparts a semblance of sound.

Does anyone else hear that?

Perhaps they are fortunate too.

I thought I was the only one

(childish I know).

It pitches high but not gratingly so,

And then it falls,

Always B minor.

And then it holds,

Enduring for a time,

And then it stops.

I quiver, inhale, release,

Ruffle wingspan but do not fly,

Click beak but know no song.

This is fear.

Living in this silence;

The aftermath of you.

A man with two useless palms,

Holding nothing

But a memory.