Then Nothing Else

When I do not find your black eyes
everything founders
beneath the surges of darkness,
and I am lost
in this world,
in my soul.

Your eyes are a lighthouse,
if you look at me,
and if not
then nothing else
then
never-ending nights.

Everything that could ever ignore a man
has
ignored me:
these people, kindness, trust
and innocent laughter,
everything but
the mocking grins of these serrated shapes,
the unbearable mass of these weightless shadows on my chest,
but
nothing could, ever, ignore me
like your eyes,
when they slam shut their poetry book,

those perfect rhymes
turning every prose to poetry
every cacophony to melody,
every thirst to an oasis,
every lance to a tender touch,
every bundle of thorns to red roses
and every jagged rock
to consciousness.

Those eyes,
the only certainty
between the lines of doubt,
the only sanity in the mad world,
sweet dreams
within the nightmares of wakefulness,
verses only
to whisper in my ears,
to play
the harp of my senses
alone,
as without them
in this shoreless sea
the loneliness
is all mine.