On The Night I Fell In Love With You

on the night I fell in love with you
I stood on a stage and lost every word
the paper in my hand shook
like Shechtman's quasicrystals
like Rabin and Arafat in 93
and the foundations of their city
every year after
no one warned me about this
that I'd try to deliver my lines
(as I had countless times) and fail
that your soft shoulder would cave me
drill me down into my better self
grow me stronger, keep me speechless
no one stepped in to explain
that I wouldn't be able to concentrate
on anything except writing your name
if anyone would've mentioned that this blue marble
(which has been shot putted tangentially
into a lonely corner
looping a single star)
has been withholding you for 27 turns,
I would've lost my mind trying to find you
all the sooner to fall headlong into oblivion
on the night I fell in love with you
it was all I could do to ask you for a walk
away from the crowd and into graveyard storms
to climb with me into trees and metaphors
feel the gasping, pulsing comfort of woven arms
and listen to the branches of my silence
if someone had told me that you would acquiesce,
and even match my awkward gait
I would have told them wars don't end with hand-shakes
but with confidence as unshakable as Shechtman's
and also, my balance, that falling is only the beginning to being