THE WORDS I OWN by Michael Shay
Surviving loss with a generosity of spirit has given Michael Shay’s poetry the wings to carry family from his own parents to his children. With a photographer’s eye for how we remain connected to nature, “The Words I Own” offers rejuvenation through the beauty of language. Read and be transformed
THIS IS NOT A LOVE POEM
By Michael Shay
This is not a love poem
After 29 years
There are
No new arrivals
And much has changed.
You are not the same person I married
And t5his is not the same poem I would have written
I write differently now
And when you sit so close
The past begins to vanish
And that does not matter
Because all the past creates a now
Where nothing can go on without you
I have been with you
Longer than I have been with myself.
It is a quiet comfort of spaces filled
Lights flashing off in the distance
A reminder of how far we have come
Your beauty has a place here
In the snaphots’ blur
In the succession of hairstyles, smiles
And bright, bright eyes
The stars disappear behind the glow
Of a ¾ moon
Which we need glasses
To see clearly anymore