Part One
to look at your pictures from college,
then early morning I dreamt-
you asking me to wait, asking me to turn back
from my morning walk, in that dreamscape.
How ironic, given it was a walk I intended to take
to avoid you, and your avoiding gaze, your annoyance.
Even in dreams I imagine our next inevitable meeting,
my awkward inability to escape, your aloofness a stake,
through my middle-aged heart.
But there you were, invading my early morning landscape,
distracting me with your call to wait,
bringing back memories as you tied up your shoelace-
"Will you walk with me? I need to get away from the baby."
I don't know what happened next.
But I know I would have dropped everything
and everybody to know that.
Part Two
They called you 'smiling barracuda' in college,
while my angry overbite made me a shark.
My mouth too sharp, your teeth set
too apart. Imperfect women,
with imperfect mouths.
I wish now we'd heard Tori Amos back then,
"Can't stop what's coming, can't stop
what is on its way." As if that could change
the fact that we could not stop
the marriages, the children,
your last angry phone call, my stubbornness.
And now we seem to have completely stopped,
our footsteps too far away from each others' earshots,
an invisible line separates us
much more than oceans, continents, and
children's hungry mouths.
I take walks with my husband now,
(now that the children are in college)
and still wonder about you,
keep wondering still how I remain -
the girl who'd be a boy for you.
On some mornings, some days.
September 2016.
