Why would you ration out 
your love as though it were 
rare packets of sugar in wartime, 

brown paper squares wrapped in string, 
passing hands with paucity and a whisper or glance, 
stored safely in a cellar by a large brass key,

rather than a fresh stream cascading 
down the mountainside in little pools and rivulets
as sun melts the hard-packed ice peaks of winter

in springtime, cyclical and self-renewing,
pouring free from an effulgent spring, cold and clear, 
enough not only to drink, but to revel and bathe?
 
Were you so worried that you would run out
or spoil me, that you held it tightly in your fist 
like a toddler with sand, not seeing the irony 
as the grains fell slowly through your fingers?