She moves across the earth with measured pace,
Each clockwork motion careful and precise.
She emanates the opalescent grace
And accidental cruelty of ice.
Her world is structured, ordered all in squares
And laid out, row by row, like tesserae;
And while her home, serene and quiet, is there
It has no room within for such as me.
She speaks to me, polite and affable
But when I reach to her a wall ascends.
I cannot break the glass around her soul
Or reach the heart such solitude defends.
But while breath yet remains, or heart, or will,
So curse me for a fool, I love her still.
(December 1999)