Recognition (Sestina)

Now dreaming of your face has made me think
Some memories are better not to taste
The howling frenzied voice I’m forced to hear
My body aches remembering your touch
Such reminiscence has a heady scent
Yet yesterday is all I want to see

Since plucking out my eyes caused me to see
Into the fog of loving you, I think
Sometimes I’m still surrounded by the scent
I contemplate the danger of your taste
While yearning for the ruthlessness of touch
My blood boils silently and yet I hear

Just yesterday I didn’t choose to hear
And so refused to scrutinize or see
Abandoned truth had softened anguished touch
And clouded my ability to think
This longing for forbidden fruit to taste
Forgetting what you are, I tracked your scent

I journeyed down old roads to find your scent
The screams of troubled heartbeats, all I hear
My hungering has numbed the awful taste
Entombing my soul so I cannot see
Healed bruises fade and I forget to think
My sanity resigns yielding to touch

Our love life was a beast not wise to touch
I recognized your name from just the scent
Falling into the past I did think
Suspicion not the voice I longed to hear
While going back as if I could not see
I had the need to take another taste

Such poison often leaves an after taste
It numbs the senses to the truth of touch
A harvest of oblivion can’t see
A venomous destruction has no scent
When lucid recollection doesn’t hear
Beyond the heart’s insistence not to think

In forcing me to think beyond the taste
Of loving words to hear and blissful touch
A scent can sometimes blind the mind to see