Sunday, April 17, 2011

Awake

Then, we were among the many friends and faces, wet-eyed, laughing and chatting with a see-you-soon ease. By death and slight of hand we became fewer until it was just I and my voices – of no standing and having a calendar only as something to carry in case.

But you came back to me this afternoon as you said you would. I could hear you speaking to me as I walked by the little park a few blocks from where we had lived. You with me and through you my mind opened onto a room where we all were together again, laughing and chomping delicate and exotic morsels, jesting with one another, drinking, forgetting everything we had promised to hold dear, passing through those moments as if we had centuries to spare.

I have no time to spare and I do not want to sleep through sounds like my boots thudding on uneven sidewalk or the sight of a single fall-reddened leaf hanging at the end of its bare branch, or Latin drums drifting from an upstairs window I-know-not-which-one, or a sweet kiss I can taste that helps me remember -

You and I will be together again soon.