Out of Sight

Since you lit the kindling of this brain,
I’ve learnt to fire-fight by writing poems.
Though I’m a brave coward, my heart
is blistered by the months and years.
I don’t want to crack up because of love, darling.
When can we live together?
Since a chance encounter and your reasoning
dowsed the embers of my dignity,
my self-respect quavers, wavers thin as evening smoke.
Our sympathies keep burning out. But I won’t give up.
My mind and body still glow with hope.
I hate advice, the cold eye of critique and judgement.
I don’t want to display my goods in the window,
or write my price on a yellowing shop tag
hung up by a silk string.
This woman you think of as damaged,
her life almost earthed over,
has been growing away from your philosophies.
You thought me dull, immersed in the classics.
You thought me cool. You thought me frigid.
You struck a spark and set my brain aflame,
and it became a forest fire, rolling forwards.
Where are you hiding, my darling? Where?