A Thousand Fair Suitors

A thousand fair suitors all stab at your heart
Those poets of movement and jockeys of art
The high-volume vendors who hustle romance
Splashing their canvas with color and dance

The blasters of trumpets, gold banners unfurled
They offer lush gardens in glistening worlds
Yes, bearers of torches and carvers of stone
Who whisper their sonnets and surrender their thrones

And there in your doorway, no shadow is cast
No lingering voices, no ghosts from the past
Just a cluster of walls, and a window of pain
Collecting the heartache like droplets of rain

Still I stand before you, with palms to the sky
No gold in my pocket, no thorn in my side
And all I can offer, where words have no place
Is a body that trembles, and this love that awaits

Poem by Jeff Kurfess