the rift in you now healing,
play 
      like babes with me.
there’s nothing to keep us 
                from skirting ‘round the other.
do you hear me little star?
                —that scar as it needs to be?

you can tell time with it.
sit with it and see.
do you see? do you like it?
surely you know it is your growing.

do you like me this way too?
i do like you 
               just this way friend, 
                                            i do.

loving different than liking.
when we say i love you all day long,
love hardly means a thing.

a-sometimes feel—a-spinning 
               round like a pulsar,
               with no lodestar to guide.
by the loving and liking of you, and—
by that growth deep in the worst you hide,
i anchor in the sky. 
               i am not leaving.

i am not leaving, and—
               i cannot say more, but only—

it is much more inviting.
it is a beautiful, honest ring.
i’ve long tried to say i love you—
i like you
               oh what it speaks,
               what it does not say.