the weight of tenderness

no easy thing to forget, the weight of tenderness.
joy, dreams, wisdom and serenity,
tenderness sinks deeper than any of these gravities.

see the smile curls
the heart and coils the strings until
they give.
hold the smile, cuddle it, try its weight, tenderness
swelling into half-empty.
nothing but
the weight of melancholy.

with a slow sad susurrous
rustle, the wind plucks the autumn bough.
leaves, golden and red, sprinkled
the boy and the girl with poetry and death.
and the boy lifts a single green leaf
from the girl's hair.
fallen, like a kiss.