Total Eclipse

Not wanting to write

for fear that anything-

the passion for the page,

the love of carbon ribbons & erasers-

will distract me from your face,

from your eyes green

as the flickering base of flames,

& your tarnished copper hair.



My love is thick as rust

& just as hard to scrape off.

It glows like the green roofs of paris:

it shines in the sun like dropped pennies.



I fix on your face

until I am blurred & bleared,

until my eyes cannot focus

& all words become one.



Oh let me write you into my life!

I am afraid of rust & tarnish,

but even more afraid of this gleam.



When my eyes have taken you in,

when my body has eaten

& spat you out,

when my heart remembers to beat

& my fingers remember the pen-



will I still remember you then,

boyish & sly-

yet a total eclipse of my sun?