For Ryan

by Helen Alonso
(Florida)

You wrote of the differences
Infringing on the silence for the warmth
The light from the marrow of the bone
The honey from the comb
Breaking between my hands to take
Taking not what I want, but what I need
Reducing beauty to dust to be freed
but never of this greed
I would be nothing to you
Street signs or a rock under your shoe
Never the destination
I became associated
with the wind
with the rain
The sole manner of these things not
to be
but to leave.
Budding innocence
Raucous winds pulled petals aside
Not for the sake of beauty;
to deride.
In wake of the currents there,
tousled wind-blown hair,
a stare;
looking on a place of
seams
that won't pull themselves together;
Malevolent weather
petals pulled
apart.
For sake of a heart
tousled
and wilting.