For One I Loved Before I Knew Him

In memory of youth and inexperience
I swing a creaking door to a vacant room
In my mind's eye, in this perfect house 
the blazing canopy of sunset spooks me

I am boxed in with the weight of my jealousy
my longing and my inability to consider the now
instead of the then and the will be
not to mention the might and the should

In this maze of evening, I am 

captivated by the image of your face

with which I have met only five times

It is familiar, kind, and lovelier than I

Only with the recognition of that
which now I know now to be love
can I inhale both 

cool and deep

This dawning assuages and startles me
my knees wobbly weak
and my lips on yours

but only in my mind