Bits of you arrived in the mail today.

A post card with two boyish monks

sitting on stone stairs, ascending

into a floral heaven

and I thought

you're so far away

in this foreign place

that I've only read about

in the National Geographic

And I wonder how you must feel

to be alone there

in Sri Lanka

amongst such beauty

Then I remember

I too am alone here

amongst the ugliness

of this stone structure

of wire that cuts

and diminishes human life—

But then

bits of you arrived in a post card

And everything changed

I find myself holding it

Remembering

your gentle embrace,

your soft symmetrically aligned features swerving like the words written

on this post card, in my dreams

of an image quite vivid

of a vivacious spirited, you—or I,

the pauper who longs to possess

a femme fatale of magnificent beauty

is this some chimera-like obsession

to want and to need that which

seems unattainable, yet captivating

like the Venus de Milo and David

objects of desire

timeless sculptures, representations

of mans fascination with the human form

I ask for nothing less than to be—

To have a place, a space

that no other has possessed

your heart, your mind

my delusions, my fallacies—

could they have originated from

an embrace of a goddess

and a post card

of two monks sitting on stone stairs

amongst lush green foliage