things I cannot tell you

I cannot tell you, for example,
that I am resting against the ache
of not seeing you rise in the morning
to sip your coffee at the window

or that the prospect of you
is the hidden sun in my throat
that glows, that pulls roots, and yes,
I would joyfully plant myself beside you

and also, I cannot tell you
that you are my favorite kind of ‘yes,’
my affirmation that the mountain
will not fall from beneath me

and that the whole of my skin
sleeps until you are near enough
to wake it – that all of me resides
inside almost, maybe, not quite

© Sarah Whiteley

pretending flowers

light dropped
from a great height
makes no sound still

words now
would be thin and
near to useless

hush, since
it’s futile to
say you are my joy,

and watch
the hummingbird search
the warm, red bricks

pretending
flowers where
there are none

© Sarah Whiteley

no grace in wanting

there is no grace
in true wanting –

it staggers,

and refuses
to be written –

its divinity locked
in the eyes

that yours decline
ever to meet

© Sarah Whiteley

muse

I feel the tickling
of a poem coming on
cool as fingers
on nascent nape
and I wonder
do you feel it
following behind
in the wake
of your walking?
this small disturbance
of my reluctant fervor
(in italics now)
I am lost beneath you
behind you,
between
I trail intemperate
in your passing
strangely content
with improbably possible
like all poems
impossibly true
and always never

© Sarah Whiteley