How I (tried) to love you

At a distance

More than miles between us

My touch cool,

No singe of banked fires

Playfully probing

Whimsy like a whiff of lavender

Caught on the way to all that demanded of you

Forever more than you could give.

Testing the bars of your prison

Searching for the key

To un-manacle

Dis-infect

Dive and bring up

Deeper than those roiling waters

Your mislaid heart.

In snippets

Fragments

Shredded flowers tossed at your

feet

I gave

if not

my best

Something akin

to love

Alas, no alchemy

Can revive

you

Ophelia-like, you float past

In the haze

A hairsbreadth out of reach.

Covertly