Woman From Starlake

There was a time
I would have opened the world,
broken apart the crust of the Earth
for you,
like a watermelon to let water run
from my soul.
A river from my heart
tumbling out of control
in the wake of your eyes
when they wash over me.

And your voice, low and intimate,
speaking nothing but a sound
turns me up-side down somehow.
I stay calm though my bones shake
like a planet in trouble
with its own moon.
I remain steady though the sea
of your face
rolls over me in waves.
I sit there and become a rock.

I want to rock the stars,
send them slipping from a young girl's dream,
for you.
Perhaps ten years ago
I would've done this:
beat the ground with my weight of love,
die in the seizure of my want,
for you.
But now, because I'd rather wait
for you to be clear
like a day after rain
when ozone drifts from storm-touched streets,
I simply let you fade
in and out of my grasp,
my fingers unfold and there you are-
moving furniture back and forth
across the rooms of your heart.

If you deny me and never touch me
with your small lips that seem to be
some kind of rare fruit, I will stay a rock.
Harden in the light of a godless sky
where angels shovel coal
at the sad, sad stars.


Lenny Dellarocca



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