Why My Love Poems Have Fallen Silent

You ask me
why I no longer
write love poems.

The words I had saved for them
wander about, innocent,
like balloons in a child's hand,
at the end of a single thread,
drifting and drifting,
tempting and tempting,
until, all at once,
they burst.

And still,
whatever stayed unbroken
I had set aside
for one poem.

But before
I could set it down on paper,
I closed my eyes
and thought of you...
Was it not in that half-breath of a moment
that you
stole away
every last word?

Now, on a blank white page,
I will write only your name,
underline it,
and dedicate a poem to you:
a one-line poem
of just three syllables