Three
minutes is a long time
a
long time to be away from new love
six
weeks was a century of distance;
our
love was just one year old
and
made of longing and cloud-burst
hard
gravel rush
and
fluttering trepidation
reunion
was blood-rush
and
schoolboy hesitation:
had
distance and time carved out
remembrance,
deadened love?
She
was in bed
wrapped
in her little girl world,
but
eyed curtain edge at sound
sat
up with the broadest smile
heart
and arms leapt
for
embrace
and
kisses gathered
from
the monsoon of waiting
swept
over corporeal barricades.
Our
love is now ten years old
and
our waiting is framed
by
known patterns of dislocation;
we
don’t wait on one another
our
love is used to other worlds
that
encroach and rob
give
in the parsimony of routine,
but
there was a late night arrival
as
hesitant and desirous as that morning
from
that time of greater innocence –
she
lay in bed
in
her storybook world
working
out the plots and plans
of
this moment and tomorrows
where
I may or may not figure,
she
had to turn on footsteps heard
there
was glitter in eye
and
that smile that has not aged
and
love gushed
not
in embrace or kiss
but
a heartbeat-bleed
and
tears that were fought back
for
decencies agreed upon.
Our
love is old now.
It
will grow older still;
but
the girl of one-year love
and
the girl of ten-year knowing
will
smile that smile
reach
out and touch
without
a word,
and
I
mendicant
of mercies undeserved
will
pray
that
love will revisit
in
poetry and rain
in
volumes I am too poor to give.
