Fractured Beauty

I recall an immense stillness,
And a velvet, sparkling night,
And a full, perigee moon,
Painting white wavelets,
On the black lake,
Lapping below.

Left and right,
Pines forests pricked the sky,
Dark on darker still,
Enfolding us in hushed embrace.

Small hours late we stood,
Beneath that moon,
Stealing minutes,
From the dawn.
Your perfume, razor sharp,
Seemed a blade to part,
The thickness of the summer air.

Mute, I let the night imprint itself.

I did not know you then,
Nor ever would;
A fool in love with love,
And you,
In thrall to blood,
And breath,
And bone,
Yet too young to guide,
Too young to say: forget love.
And just make love.
And me too shy to steal,
What you but loosely did conceal.

You judged me empty, perhaps.
Yet I was full,
But cautious and ill prepared,
For you.
And that big moon,
Bright witness, shone,
Upon the fractured beauty,
Of it all.