I CAN NEVER GET ENOUGH OF LOOKING AT HIM
by Maxine Mayer
23 July, 2000

I can never get enough of looking at him.

He suspends disbelief in me -
I must believe, accept, engage.
Fall.

He smolders - (it's not English) - at me.
It's not English. It's not proper language at all.

When Winter closed my heart (forever) - (so I thought) -
I mistook shock for death.

Winter should have frozen me in perpetuity.
I thought it had.

Alas, I'd made a (big) error - my error.

Spring's silver green shoots spring up.
Without my say-so.
Without a word of acquiescence (yea or nay, nor by-your-leave) from me.
Up, a flower.

I lick dead things, of the earth.
I am respectful but they are still dead things, dry.
I am of the earth.
He sniffs the flower.

I raise my eyes in wonder,
eyelashes beating against my brain
in the windy rush of Summer rain.

In wonder, joy, aflame.
Of a sudden, I know my name.
And I know his name.

Seasons follow one the other. Autumn comes.

I can never get enough of looking at him.