Marionette

There is nothing I could do
to complete the feelings you touch,
poke me, deflate me
with needles of infinite calm.

I see your hair
burn
from the downs
into the evening of lids.
Stilled,
I wonder if all my imaginings
breathe with the same heart as yours.

You forever purse me with lips as sly
as silent as one-eighth moons.
If the mouth of my emptiness could deflower
your image within, we would leave
with an absence.

Perhaps I ask only the vogue questions. Every time
I see you -- your Asiatic mind, your face:
evocative traces of blankness/ a clarity
within a halo --