Heart

I think I figured out
why I never took you up
on that parting drink:

You’d have walked into that bar,
a shimmer on a storm cloud,
just as beautiful as
every day I had with you.

You’d have smiled awkwardly,
that weird sort of uncertain smile
that I wanted to kiss
again and again.

We’d have talked,
maybe laughed,
maybe hugged,

but at the end we’d go out the door
under the star-flecked sky
and you’d ask me why
and I’d ask you why (but I knew).

I cannot keep what is not mine,
and while we might have made it
days or months more,
I’d never stop searching for your heart:

The one thing you never gave,
though it mattered most.