I read your letter anyway
And then had to search
For the right stationery
Before writing back.
I do not love like this anymore, or say
these grand things,
as a habit. They
Embarrass me.

As I walked, my jeans,
Creased now to daily living,
Like an x-ray or
Like the Shroud of Turin,
Showed the old wounds.

Then driving, thinking of your letter, I heard, almost, a song,
of bottles rolling over jumper cables in the back as
I passed the crowd downtown, on cracked and broken curbs, under buildings
of some foreign policy,
with the other unredeemable things,
Holding sway, channeling wind, a temporal
Power, stone against and reaching toward
Cloud masses.

And I thought,
To those who journey as though at sea
There are songs that come as though from beyond.
But the present already is past,
the past always present,
every pain infused with
the longing, and always
some suspect
that we are the fools.

In a rented room, later now, I write
on plain page. How you have invaded,
brightened, for a while, my way.
Do we wait? It wasn’t always there
When I almost touched you,
or in those glances either.
I’ve kept moving, swallowed
All the words I didn’t finally say to you about
What we saw practiced everywhere,
What no one but you or I can keep from coming true.

# # #

Thomas Allbaugh. Read more here: www.thomasallbaugh.com

Photo credit:  Kae Sable