The Things I Learned From Franklin Moore

The things I learned from Franklin Moore

That passions are blind

Steadfast and patient

My face flushes wildly as the words you read

Bounce from the page into your mouth

Fall upon my ever-patient ears

Poems of intertwining love

Sweet love

You speak the words with such fervor

As if they take you somewhere else

A higher place

You become someone else

I see only you

I feel my heart will escape and take flight

I can bear this no longer

You pause and say my name

How joyous!

A proclamation of ecstasy I try so hard to dispel

Averted, dear me, so close

My secret safe inside

My name you call

“Yes, my love” I dare not answer

“Yes” I beckon you

The word escaping so feebly from my lips

“What is the meter and rhythm of this poem?”

My heart has sunken beyond utter despair

Our love will never be

I mumble a response

You smile and your eyes meet mine

My love!

Such sweet embrace!

“That’s absolutely so!”

You apprised

I the student

You the teacher

Later on that day

I sat in a coffee shop

Across the way

Not far from where we met

I sit and study the words you informed me to know

And who should enter but you, my love

Walking to my table

And take your seat near mine

You ask me for my insight on the class you taught

How was I to say anything bad of you?

The things I learned from Franklin Moore

I buttered you up, you thought

My nose; mahogany

I cooed you on

Oh, how you fell!

Indecently so!

I spoke of my vast knowledge of poems I never read

I told you of all the great poets that had inspired my writing

I hadn’t written a single word

I figured my words fell on deaf ears but your eyes lit up

I knew you saw my soul

The point I tried to convey

My words could not

Would not

Express such duress

You leaned in tenderly

And the sensation of lip’s caress made my heart explode

Oh, how heaven cannot differ!

You peeled away and lovingly your eyes met mine

I the student

You the teacher

Dumb girl!

What a horrendous fate I have undertaken

Forbidden art of love

Certainly, they have a place in Hell for heathens such as I

Selfishly I stole her kiss from you

The one you really loved

Your wife’s

You the teacher

And I the meager student

Guilty you felt sitting there numb

Starring at my soft features in the moonlight

Night had fallen but we had not

You didn’t want to leave

I wanted you to stay

We sat in silence and looked on at one another

In utter amazement

Utter disdain

Oh, cursed time!

Separating us from our unending love

Oh cursed God!

For making me feel the affections I feel

However, I do not blame thee

Only myself

But You, my Lordship, implanted such feelings

To what end?

He the teacher

I the student

The dirty deed was done

That following week or so

More than once

Ashamed I felt

Smooth and gentle

Till sunset had come to bid us ado

My hips pressed beneath your fingertips

You held me, trembling

Your breath labored

My breast heaving against your chest

When the cold of your ring

Oh, cursed ring!

Touched my spine

I imagined it felt like the pain of a soldier

Run through with a sword

By one’s own comrade

Cold hard steel

I loved you anyway

The only way I knew how

You the teacher

I the student

She your wife

Oh lucid affair

Born out of nothing but implacable demands

I had you and you had me

You told me once that you didn’t love her

But she loved you

This much I knew

The things I learned from Franklin Moore

Never did I know how

I could loath a man so

Until I’ve been deep within their love

I learned to love was to give it all

I learned that some doors should never be opened

I learned how to grow up

How to love

How to be a woman

I learned that I was beautiful

That I was funny and smart

I learned what it meant to love a man

How to really love a man

I learned how a heart could break

And how to shut the door

I left one day

Never dare return

I locked the door behind me

Never to turn around

I wonder if you ever think of me

Or if you even miss me

But the way you held me with such esteem

The way your eyes met mine

The things I learned from Franklin Moore

Was more than I could comprehend

The meaning of poetic verse

That atmosphere of jubilee

Oh how you told me

“The stars are bright but you are so much more to me”

You said you loved me more than you could stand

It’d hurt you more if I should have stayed

I thank you, Franklin Moore

For all the things you taught me

For the love, you fought me

I the student

You the teacher

She the wife

I live a far off way from you now

I have a daughter to call my own

And a husband as well

The things I learned from Franklin Moore

Still affect my everyday

Still affect the thoughts I think

The words I say

I will love you always

For you dared to love me once

You shall never be forgotten

Not even for a moment

But even now, I say

I have lived those days over again

For I the student

And you the teacher