While I Was Not Looking

It was discomfort

As beauty found my word

And forgot to end it

With a point

Instead

A life was made of it

That word

That name

As if a holiday gift

Left wrapped in its own ribbon

It was discomfort then

But now

As days get numbered

Like the gallop

Of an aging race horse

My word writes itself

At the start of every

Ending point

… The passage of beauty

And the shadow it left behind

Remain my cherished gifts

Even if

I have never untied

The yellow ribbon

June 10, 2017

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2017