Lacking

my nakedness too concealing,
my rendering of truth too nuanced,
I offered shades of gray so pale
as to mimic opaqueness.

yet could words have ever sufficed?
or would a single touch reveal more
than 10,000 of my curlique prosaic ornations?

should I find only cold there
surely then I'd know
or a hint of warmth might bear witness
to an ember of feeling too cherished
to extinguish

when two who are estranged
look past one another
only themselves in a mirror they see
a true image of the other
lies out of reach on the far side
of the glass, wide like an ocean,
maybe too distant to measure