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[Written June 2008, appeared in when hephaestus fell and other poems]

This is not a love letter:
Nothing here bears
the calluses of youth,
Starry-eyed, tentative
None of the imaginative stirrings
Of first love, first blood
No longer uncharted, devoid
of childish pride
and bravura, the romance
of the unfamiliar

I will write about the fine lines
Treading delicately on your skin,
The yeras creeping up to gently
wear away at your bones,
And I marvel
At the quiet, companionate silence
Of travelers, and the familiarity
The chasm
Of childhoods that we bridge
With a word and a memory

You would be the shelter
I cling to,
I would be the cradle
For you to repose, lonely
as a child and no longer
Brave, or fearless: we trace
Each other's scars
And lick our wounds dry
Like tigers