tandem
sometimes i think it all began when we were
young, some other lifetime ago, when i was
someone’s daughter or sister and you were
someone’s brother or son and
there i was hurtling across the green,
late, as usual, and perhaps i ran into you,
or i was sitting on a stone bench in the shade of a
beech tree, reading a tiny volume and you
stopped short and forgot what you were saying or
drove your bicycle into a lamp-post
and sometimes i remember
running in the surf, the sand sticking to our
childish legs as the buckets collided and
the sun baked down and i know
there was once a village, somewhere,
in the mountains where the air was clear and
crisp and soldiers came and that time i
never saw you again except in smoky
dilapidated dreams
(actually, that probably happened a lot)
and there have been times when we
met too late or only for a moment