Resurrecting Passion

Last night, while dawn was far away

and rain streaked gray, tumescent skies,

as thunder boomed and lightning railed,

I conjured words, where passion failed ...

But, oh, that you were mine tonight,

sprawled in this bed, held in these arms,

your breasts pale baubles in my hands,

our bodies bent to old demands ...

Such passions we might resurrect,

if only time and distance waned

and brought us back together; now

I pray these things might be, somehow.

But time has left us twisted, torn,

and we are more apart than miles.

How have you come to be so far—

as distant as an unseen star?

So that, while dawn is far away,

my thoughts might not return to you,

I feed your portrait to the flames,

but as they feast, I burn for you.

Michael R. Burch is the editor of The HyperTexts, on-line at www.thehypertexts.com, where he has published hundreds of poets over the past three decades. His poetry has been translated into fourteen languages, taught in high schools and colleges around the globe, incorporated into three plays and two operas, and set to music by seventeen composers. A five-time Pushcart nominee, his poems, translations and essays have appeared in hundreds of literary journals, including The Lyric, New Lyre, Romantics Quarterly, The Chained Muse, LIGHT, Measure, Southwest Review, The Chariton Review, The Chimaera, Brief Poems, Poem Today, Asses of Parnassus, Writer’s Digest—The Year’s Best Writing and The Best of the Eclectic Muse.