The sliding glass doors reflect the light
‘til the room
is a doubly aglow,
and I can see you as well
as the squirrels heard hunting for morsels
on our balcony see us.

You sit close enough for me
to smell your butterscotch skin,
but your words are music to my ears-
not pleasant, but foreign.

How am I to translate
an alien tongue?
How am I to know what a song means?

Perhaps through immersion,
but when was the last time you said so much?

I could reach to feel your hand,
but I could drown inside your skin
and still not understand. I gasp,
and in the air I taste your fear,
but what else can I sense?

For you are as dark and opaque to me
as the sliding doors that block the night;

I only see my reflection,
a trick of the light.