Hugging lovers struggle in vain

Hugging lovers struggle in vain to occupy the same space –
kiss in a failed attempt to speak each other as a word –
Unsuccessfully strive to stop time by filling each other’s present –
Eyes shut in an effort to renounce the world for each other –

Only apparently on the verge of becoming the other
Inspired by love to explore the limits of personhood
To risk that mysterious affair of shattering them
And live in that impossible point of self-denial
Where no one is safe, nor confident, nor comfortable
- just immensely peaceful, just immense,
just finally eternal, eternal at last,

- And thus the universe shivers truly, unnoticeably
When two come boldly forth and boldly experiment
That utter-proximity-of-persons
Which makes them so small and lost and strangely free and