Eschewed Obfuscation

Shalott

. . . and so forgetting
what I came to say,
I sense a shadowed loom
in the room behind you.
There will be no windows
save one and, of course,
one river only.
Then the mirror,
lacking, suddenly, you.
What you are
forces the tapestry: your hands
shaping fables, my steps
on the twisted stair.
I must ride past,
not at all myself,
you must look down, the mirror . . .

Following

Of you in the slowly dark I'm thinking,
feeling the twilight as music
marred by the chord of your absence.

One afternoon
you lamented the curl of your hair
and the shape of your toes.

I told you I couldn't possibly love
a freckled woman. And you
were laughing. My finger found

a blue vein running along
your throat and followed it down,
though I had said that if you ran

I would not follow.
And so I am entangled
in a promise I may break,

because I would have you want me,
at the very least, enough to take
these offerings for what they are:

craftings in the hollow of a sleepless night,
shot through with the discord
of your being far away, and not mine.

There are no shadows
in the dream. The sun
is very bright. The wind
exceeds expectation.

Ransacked, we watch
everything blow away
and everything, blowing away,
watches us recede.

Soon, without appearing to move,
we are far from each other,
and I seem to have arrived
where no one needs my love.

The wind is done. Shadows
slide into place, bringing stars.
And then, in the dream, she comes,

her hands spilling moonlight,
to accept the sacrifice
with the naming of her name.

A poem and a riddle! Cut for convenience; the riddle is untitled, for obvious reasons.