"She asks for poetry..."

She asks for poetry as if it’s mine

to give. She’s quiet when I ask her for a name.

Her perfume spreads and I become entwined.

Ten years and we are strangers all the same.

Her smile hides in a Venetian mask.

In a parade of angels, she goes missing.

Emerging in past tense, I’m reminiscing

of all the questions that we never asked.