I would tell you a poem
swathed in velvet color
capped in holographic finish

but it would never reach enough heights to grant you 
the fullness of the first life that was ever lived,
would it? Not the ability to memorize each drop of light
we’ve lost with the advent of the camera
and find replaced with only longing when the shaken-out photograph
emerges to begin its process of fading, from the start
a layer short of true three-dimensional
masterpiece of sight.

Why would I write you a poem
when it could never see in what new colors
were introduced to the spectrum
in the moments I saw
& the ones I had but heard of,
yet the words spoken were enough
to form something perfect in the mind?

I would end it here, before it had begun.
Because nothing would leave me more heartbroken
than leaving behind anything too human to replicate the stars.

So I won’t.