If I accidentally crossed your new path,
and we faced each other eyes to eyes
like two creatures who used to be at
war but have long since had an uneasy
truce, what would we say beyond the
awkward half glances and fumbling words?
Would we mention the days long dissolved
in memory in which we were wound together
and knit with each other into a sacred cloth
that everyone full admired and praised?
Or might we instead bring our conversation
to the unravelling: to the unexpected falling apart
as we found in each other things not so neat?
I have thought about this meeting long since
distance has made all things of us fit into the
cloth bags of ‘good’ and ‘bad’, strong and weak.
And of late I have pondered us and what
existed for a time that was the stuff of art;
and if, perchance, this meeting did take place
I hope to see you not as foe but as beauty
that I once held and thought complete.
28/2/2022