Is it an unfortunate possibility that I could have
revered you, whom I wanted to be sadder than you were;
less resilient than I wanted you to be?

You picked the whisked-up, ripening oranges
off the ocherous soil and deferentially sucked out the juice –
purer, sweeter and leaking more red than I imagined –
and I hoped that maybe you thought you had something to atone;

up to your escritoire you wheeled and wrote
to your very own embryonic hiatus a yearning letter…
your incandescent words will assail the postman tomorrow.

You are eager to send; you are eager to love her.
So innocently, you pressed kisses from your finger to her name.
But you couldn’t reply to my soft letter with its kind vowels,
and questions, and gently nostalgic reminisces!

I want to be innocent too; but of course
I wished that you had been sadder than you were.