This poem is for anyone who’s ever made something beautiful because of how someone made them feel, even if that feeling was unspoken.
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Every night I carve you into grain and shadow,
etching the curl of your voice into cherrywood panels,
as though the curve of your laugh could be bound like ink,
as though a xylographer might trap love between the fibres of bark and time.
In my studio, the air stirs with cedar and something deeper,
a fluttery nervousness like the moment just before a first touch,
like the hush between hands that almost meet and lips that still wonder
if the world might split open from something so gentle.
Beside me, the cauldron hums low with the scent of longing,
its brew swirling with colour that reminds me of your eyes in evening light,
while a delicate vial rests on the sill,
half-filled with the elixir I brewed from dried rose hips and stolen glances.
There is no magic more exact than the way you made me look twice,
no formula as potent as the memory of your fingers grazing mine
while we passed each other paper and possibility.
And now this potion waits, warm and slow,
crafted not from spellwork but from steady hands and the ache of wanting,
a quiet alchemy where art and affection become the same tender thing.
About the Creator
Diane Foster
I’m a professional writer, proofreader, and all-round online entrepreneur, UK. I’m married to a rock star who had his long-awaited liver transplant in August 2025.
When not working, you’ll find me with a glass of wine, immersed in poetry.
Reader insights
Nice work
Very well written. Keep up the good work!
Top insight
Excellent storytelling
Original narrative & well developed characters
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More stories from Diane Foster and writers in Poets and other communities.
The Quest I Cannot Speak
This poem is pretty weird, as it relates to my husband having to go through regular x-rays, and every time I sit in the waiting area, I find myself wondering about the technician! Who are they beneath the scrubs and the neutral smile? What are they thinking when they gently position a person who's hurting, or when they see something that might change someone's life? Are they secretly longing for adventure?
By Diane Foster8 months ago in Poets
Comments (5)
Magically beautiful, Diane
To be the effect or affect of such beauty, which is better? To be inadequate to the task of affecting within or from our own being the effect that has been stirred within us is to ache with a thirst that cannot be slaked, a hunger which cannot be sated. And so the artist strives without ever arriving.
Oh this is beautiful! This had me tearing up - I feel the ache of this so very deeply. I want that so much for myself too. This line "while we passed each other paper and possibility" is one of my favorites!
Love the imagery. A very beautiful poem.
nice keep god working