Nympheas

I ask only for one touch, one of your fingers laced in mine, a simple brush of your chin against my cheek. Monet’s eyes, in his age, grew dull and blind, his paintings blurry and best enjoyed from afar. I think of you, in the cold memory of a museum, his floating lilies drowning in swirls of thick paint, his eyes tired, his vision impaired, irreversible. I always reach, I never see; I am young, but my eyes are old and tired, and my heart is old and tired, and my skin longs to be touched. Aching to be held, waiting to see, I want to float, I want to see the lilies clearly.