The Worst Moment

Gentle as eyelid kisses
From a hesitant lover

New to the scenarios
Of effortful tenderness

This kind of kissing promised,
The confusion of labor

With love’s capital lost, dreams
Of a brave world requiring

Creative capacity
To think though the hours of night

The willingness to transcend
The effortful tenderness

In the name of rescuing
Everyone who might get left

By a too-inattentive
Lover at the worst moment.