Inner Workings

i have seen you

when your smiles and frowns

were so tied up and intermingled

that none- not even you

could have said

with any sureness

what face you were giving

to the crowd.

i have walked with you to subways

then twenty minutes later

i have been with someone else

and never loved you less.

i have spied on you

and looked accusingly,

when i, myself knew well

that i was in the wrong.

i have wept for you, about you

and one time with you.

i have shared your secrets and kept private

secrets of my own.

i have thought that i would die

if you failed to turn up on some

pre-selected night

and when you didn’t- wished i would.

i have loved you

never asking if i should.

i have trusted you

not caring if i could or could not.

in company

with strangers and friends

i have smiled and gone on smiling

when i thought no single smile

or grin was yet left inside me.

the things we do

in love’s name

never stop surprising me.

i’m amazed that love can live at all

through the subterfuge,

pass through the barricades,

stumble over all the obstacles

we construct and put up in its way.

the first seed

wherever planted

must have been a hearty strain.

just now what kind of passion stirs

inside me

i cannot say.

i feel for you and it’s as much as love.

but whether it’s because

i feel you leaving,

slipping from me day by day

or because i need, depend on,

want just you

i have no way of knowing,

our lives together have become so

knotted, muddled up

that’s who’s to say where the heart

ended and habit started to open up.

i love you- yes

but i don’t mean for you to know it.

pablo neruda