poem: an unspoken whisper

[Note: Ideally, I would have liked for you who inspired this to have read it first; this poem is, after all, yours. I guess what I mean to say is, please forgive the lonely cowardice that gags my existence.]

to sb


Not the first time,
but the second –
then you had changed your hair,
shortened it, did something
that made it cease to hide
the unexpected class
I’d only vaguely suspected
I’d be surprised to find.

Only in notes
Writ to Nixe
in bad grammar, even worse prose,
silly intimacies, which said
that I wanted you to teach me
your language, to parse your
pursed lips as they pronounced
words I’d pretend to know.

Delicate Deutsch!
How very odd
that a guttural R
rings so divine
when it draws from your breath,
which never dared become
a moistened whisper then
from your mouth exhaled into mine.

Enamored,
masqued or not,
teach, but don’t touch,
five days a week
half past noon, in East Pyne,
I’d be so very close
as to learn longing subtlety
in a teutonic tongue.