Words Refined, Released to a Verse

“May I borrow your bar?”

Her smile—that wonder—
which itself recalls mirari,
makes palpable at once
how all of her—
mouth, eyes, skin—

is writ and grammar:
a syntax bending air,
even gravity,
with a single token favor—
that radiant cheer—

turning form to force,
desire to flame
and flame to speech.

But if she borrows—
what is returned?
What alteration remains,
what stays behind—

since no marble goes unlit
once a hand has pressed
its heat into the grain,
and beauty keeps
what beauty drinks—

like a clef poured
back into its melody,
whose hearing
can never be undone.

Bare—unadorned—
yet clarified, untied,
like the sound of a rose
in its sudden scent,

unbarred—
so that even the long-forlorn
passes once more through
into a different radiance,
a re-breathed light—

and hearts, so touched,
are roused again
towards song.