Holding you in my memory,

I think about you,
and women,
younger like you, writing
to them as did Michael Hartnett,

the Irish poet who
wrote to younger women
when he came back to writing
poems in English after he let

the language go.
He decided it was only fit
for writing “pigs for sale”
and little more.

I wish you could go
with me to Ireland and visit
Hartnett’s home town. He drank ale
to toast romance outdoors.

Even though poetry is
not your thing,
it is mine, for it
is but a part of my wild side.

The memory I hold of you is
poetry, the light in your eyes, nothing
more, except it
was a glance you tried to hide.

I imagine you and I
could walk the streets he
loved and stand by his statue
while I read his poem,

one that rhymes like poems I
write, but he
never read. I will read and you
will hear his words, but my poem

I write today
must shine within my eyes
as full moons held
within dark skies.