Helen: A Love Song
Izraq Jesen

honey you work of art / act of worship / revelation / honey you hubris / of empires fallen to
your feet / honey you sacrament / and i take you kneeling

honey you calamity / force of nature / wrath of god / and i am fallen / prey to your decree

honey you haibun
and i am / entranced

by the curve of your lips / a poet's lazy dream

honey your eyes the colour of wildfire / the colour of a constellation / honey you're a comet
tail / cosmic trail / sharp smile blazing

and my heart has eclipsed so close to your heart

and honey if this is love—
this fragile thing / wrapped in the sun / wrapped in flesh / cradled in the heat of a mouth /
heart in mouth / a confession flowing into the mouth of a river / a haibun

you are the poem i try to write / heart in mouth / mouth to mouth / heart to heart / a haibun

honey i try to write that haibun / so here is how our story goes / much like a slowed montage /
zoomed out / the distance between us panning / lenses flaring / from all the way across the
street / you wait for your bus and i wait for you / my body bending towards you like the arc
of a comma / something clenching in my chest / lodged thick in my throat

honey you're the secret i hide / lodged in my throat / and i ache / can't look away

honey i can't look away when you look at me like that / from all the way across the street / the
sun in your hair / the wind in your limbs / my heart in your hands / and i ache / when you
look at me like that / like i belong / to you like you / want me to and i / unravel

helen i am unravelled and if you're the wind / i am a leaf caught trembling
helen for you i am troy / led to ruin by a touch of your bare feet

helen / hold my gaze / take the next bus / linger a little longer / call for me / helen the only
thing in my mouth when i pray is your name / so call for me and i will run

like a lost dog helen / i will run to you / like a hurricane / like smoke chasing fire / like a
soldier troop marching over collateral damage

​

honey i am the collateral damage / led to ruin / by a glimpse of your bare skin / and if this is
what it means to love so faultlessly / ruin me

helen ruin me / kiss me on the hottest day / on the longest night / after the winds stagnate /
and our breaths slows to a halt

honey you're the last light / of the first dark / and i want to kiss you when the moon is farthest
from us / hung high on the bare sky / barely there / a thin strip of light across the crescent of
your smile

helen / let me kiss you / a heady thing / your breath blooming in my mouth / let me write you
/ a haibun / in your mouth / behind your teeth / under your tongue / or that sweet spot in the
middle of your palate

let me kiss the eclipse of your body / with my body to your body / with my soul / to your soul
/ a confession / a prayer / your name / a haibun

yes you're a haibun / syllables wrapping around my throat / helen… helen… helen… / before
the floodgates collapse and i spill / all that i hold in / all that you make of me / because loving
you is boundless / ferocious and untamed

because loving you is a war lost / and when i kiss the high arch of your brows and your eyes
flutter shut and you exhale close to my neck / i lose

all restraint / against reason / like a man drowned i shore up / to the same water that drowns
me / helen / you are

love / yes you are love / and there is no writing you in full glory

except for when i am allowed to say your name when only you can hear

helen… helen… helen…

​

//
the haibun you write in my heart held captive in your hands with your lips pressed to it and i
am unwritten