What Should Have Been Written

WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN WRITTEN
Here’s what should have been written:
The absence of you will be noted;
Your surreal presence in halls
Of powdered light and reasons to care,
This maze of bodies and corners,
Navigated to run off course to you.
Apologies for the lack of fearful courage
—fear too unfairly great—
And though chance presented you,
All emptied when you were near,
 Spirits went vapid, poured by some giant’s hand
Into a space where rabbity creatures hide,
Hatching a trembling void.
Small waters awoke inside;
The movement of their sound distracted, and
Minds lost their ways to mouths so usually clever.
A stranger spoke strange words, then.
If secrets are what you have to give,
They would have bloomed gardens of golden prisms
Whose brilliance would outshine shame.
It is a lost moment,
And yet it has come to pass.
Eternal does this core ignite confusion.
Such poems have been writ for you.
This goodbye lacks its goodness.
It's a different kind of puzzle,
No numbers in boxes--just boxed in.