LISTEN

Listen,

I never dreamed

I would learn to love you so.

You are as flawed

as my vision

As short tempered

as my breath.

Every time you say

you love me

I look for shelter.

But these matters are small.

Lying entranced

by your troubled life

within as without your arms

I am once again

Scholarly.

Studying a way

that is not mine.

Proof of evolution’s

variegation.

You would choose

not to come back again,

you say.

Except perhaps

as rock or tree.

But listen, love. Though human,

that is what you are

already

to this student, absorbed.

Human tree and rock already,

to me.