she’d evade him;
only then he’d turn smooth as silk,
amiable and warm,
he’d try to win her over.
He would hang around stealthily in her study
where she sat writing poems,
he never read a line of her poetry,
but knew she wrote deeply, sonorously.
What was it she sought?
So passionately, fixedly and silently?
Sometimes
when he looked at her,
he felt like he was gazing at a star –
distant yet dazzling,
a star he was too afraid to reach out for,
a star he’d have to put back in the sky.