Poem About Samantha

I promised myself long ago,
That I would not allow another head
of brown swoop bangs to steal my soul
Away from my writing, but alas,
Samantha,
You have robbed me and all the beautiful
Trees and shadows that I used to write about.

Somehow each extended metaphor leads back,
Dancing along the sticky red lipstick,
Glittering along soft plump lips,
To a smile and a kiss that no West Wind
Could confiscate, for what is the mastery of nature,
Without some blessed from to compare it to?

Nodding through my recollection,
Easily confused by the trips of isolation I have taken,
Deep into rows upon rows of morose, browning pines,
I seem to associate the color schemes to the wildly
Calming mocha-colored depths of your wide eyes
(Ah, the coffee I drink no longer sweet but still warm)
How I wish I could envy the man whose reflection He
Saw within those-
No, it is just the trees who stand tall, firm, alone with me,
Rustling and restless in the winter wind.

It is a sickness like the disease that killed Keats;
Holding hands with the thing itself that is killing me,
I lust, I pine, oh how i could reshape the ways of time
(as well as create a rhyming scheme to fit your mood)
Because, Samantha, what torments me more than
An unfinished poem,
Is the slow process of memory.

Disappearing like the sad mounds of snow in the Spring,
Strand by strand of the hair that dances atop your
Cheery body, goes to the wind,
goes to the left above your eyes;
I count myself lucky that it is the swoops that go last,
For I could never forget your kiss, your touch,
Your kiss.

Here are these words, songs and prose all
That amount back to you, I cough, I roll over in bed,
Restless and remorseful, while long stretches of road
Tear at my sides like tuberculosis.
Lovers in feverish kisses in empty corridors of the schools,
Where surely my poetry will never be taught,
Hand-holding gimmicks that result in the softest clasp,
Of fingers and soul: I am jealous, I am jealous.

Searching for some form of clarity, some form of stability,
I suppose I will continue to let my thoughts dance and swing
To the music we should have shared,
I will hold some black-dressed girl;
she will toss my heart across an empty floor,
And while new, shiny Bostonians clack underneath elegant legs,
I wake.

Dreams of trees and shadows and all the beautiful things,
You robbed me of; I do not want them back,
Just chance one more glimpse of your swoops,
before they go like the leaves.