Shared Pleasures
I don’t want to love you
because then these words might stop.
These words that give me pleasure
in a way you never have.
But that’s not true, because in fact, these words
are exactly what you gave me!
Trade that other pleasure for this one,
or possess both simultaneously?
My longing for you will not stop
on the day when first I love you
because that pain is very sweet.
Great art in love born from such hunger.
The only way to salve that pain,
all I have, both now and then,
without you: more words written to persuade you
that someday soon that other pleasure we should share.
Then we will share both pleasures most exquisitely.
T.H. Chalm 