Woman, you are the one who lingers
In my mind with aching tenderness,
But you are hidden in the distance,
Walking through the business world
With your stately shoulders
In a summer dress;
Your smile is brief and suggests
Inner-stirring ideas
For the moment suppressed.
Are your thoughts
All professional and money related?
Or do you drift
Into your young girl affairs
And the first lucky boy
To kiss your virgin breasts?
I would have been
That fortunate and karma-blessed boy
If circumstance and geography
Would have brought me
To the wondrous parks and haunts
Of your girlhood dreams.
It would have been love
And I wouldn’t have lost you
To indelicate or cruel mistakes of time,
I would have cherished your breath
And would have kept you
Like a mystical and sacred locket
Forever next to my heart.