I wish I had your gentle touch with words.
Your poems rise out of you like mist
every time you smile.
I work with a hammer and chisel
and I often tear off fragments
of my flesh.

You are so young.
You must have lived many more lives than I.
I wish I knew you better.
I don’t know how to be gentle.
I dream I am a beast with brutal hands
trying to touch your hair,
crushing the flowers I would bring you
in my concrete fingers.

I have been dead for years.
I am just now beginning my life
with this poem to you.