On an Excess of Passion

We strummed so many strings
and sang so many songs

that I've forgotten
what we may have meant.

Rosehip tea
to an afternoon.

(Promises
of seaweed.)

We must have said
"thank-you for the tea" etc

or "you have nice eyes" etc
but I remember nothing.

No moon
to break and reshape

on the waters near the shore.
No silver swan

to sing the silence.
Only tea and seaweed:

an evening of strings
and butterfly wings.

-Bill K. Boydstun

On an Excess of Passion is reprinted here with the permission of its author. The poem originally appeared in First Harvest.