Tim Wisniewski lives in Washington DC, where he works for Reingold LINK, a strategic communications and community engagement firm. He is a 2013 graduate of Bridgewater College, where he received his BA in English. This poem appears in published form here for the first time, but it is part of a larger collection of poems and short stories looking for a home in print.

What the Words
By Tim Wisniewski

What were the words that Paris spoke
or whispered softly in her ear
that got fair Helen on the boat
to leave behind all she held dear?
What kind of picture did he paint
that filled her soul with such romance,
to fortify her heart with strength,
to know the risks, yet take the chance?
And once away, how did he hold
her slender figure to his heart;
in night, on waters dark and cold,
together, how’d they view the stars?
Did, as they watched, all time stand still?
How gently did they list and rock?
What waves did lap and coax the keel?
What touch belied the need to talk?

Did his heart cry direct to hers,
bypassing other senses known–
so that, when all the stars dispersed
his seed of love laid with her own?
Or did the stars conduct that score?
Rubato–shhh! FORTE piano–
elision, fermata–just a moment more …
then soulful fission … sigh … da capo.
And as the stars’ sonata faded,
what memory lingered behind,
sustaining them for countless days
with tranquil hearts, if turbulent minds?

Alas, if I did know the words
that Paris spoke and Helen heard,
I could not whisper them to thee
for you’re no Helen. No Paris, me.
Such it shall be that loving tales
consume and occupy my wonder,
filling billowed masts and sails–
the spark of lightning, booming thunder
But stormy love must gather slow
if safe travels will come to pass;
afar admired from the boat,
just weather doomed to never last.

Though maybe, if the stars still sing,
o’er future passage some time hence,
you’ll lean against a rail or fence,
torrential deluge chanced to soak
and washed adrift you’ll think of me
wondering what the words that Paris spoke.