The 'Absurdly Personal'

Sometimes writing about Big Things, even thinking about them is too much.  I remember in ‘Doctor Zhivago,’ his poetry being called ‘absurdly personal’ by the Bolsheviks.  Yet it is the personal that is universal.  We can hold different political and moral beliefs, adhere to different social norms, but we all have those moments when another human being makes us catch our breath and struggle for composure.  Perhaps our circumstances allow us to follow our hearts, perhaps they do not. Perhaps we even endanger our lives if we reveal such feelings.  Yet they exist all the same.

Voyeur

I know the sight of you

to raise a glow

upon my face

and a smile on my lips.

I know the sound of you

to shiver

past my eardrums

and resonate in my belly

yet…

I prefer the edges of you

to be intangible,

just beyond reach

like flames that warm my hands.

I prefer the shape of you
in two dimensions,
in imagining 
that belongs to dreams.