Love Song for Aimee

Love Song For Aimee

I wanted to write you a love song
pitched to your sweet voice, perfectly
sitting out on the stoop, reading poetry
practicing lyrics while you fell
further out of love waiting
for me to find my voice
for me to interview my heart
and learn the truth, what was there . . .
 
But the rhymes came out imperfect
voice caught in my throat
constricted by fear and the flotsam
of old loves, of broken dreams,
of betrayals and desertions
 
I wanted to write you a love song
pitched the precise blue of your eyes
—why haven’t I told you the beauty I see there?
Now I sit on this black metal love seat
glider too rusted through to seat two
the lyrics come too late for love
new abandonment & new love lost
constrict my throat further
and I can’t sing you a love song
over the wooing words of your new joy
and the cries of my heart over new loss.

One not given to clinging to bitterness,
I find in the flotsam these true words:
I love you
I wish you well.

David M Pitchford
26 September 2009